Abandon humanity, One step at a time (FT, Open)

[Solar Communes]

(OOC: Part 1 is not needed for you to understand the premise of this thread)

PART 1

There was once a world named Eden, a world of unspeakable beauty, ridden with animal life and vast woods. A very pleasant world to live in.

Decades have passed since its settlement. Life was now different. The animals, they slowly vanished from the planet, and now, only the forests remained.

In a completely untamed region of one of its many forests, two figures moved together, two disembodied black robes hovering over the ground, covered by massive amounts dust. They began to solidify, to condensate into humanoid forms. They became two women who had those robes as their only clothing for now. One of them, the tallest, looked to the other and asked:

"Why have you brought me nowhere, mother?"

"Shh, can't you hear it? This is not nowhere, there is something here Kara, something necessary for the born ones to learn." the woman, named Isabel, began to walk towards a distant clearing in the woods.

"Born ones? What? What do you mean?" when Kara asked, the woman next to screamed loudly, and Kara backed off, and the other woman wept.

"It was given a name: Kara, it had no shape, born into perfection. It never knew hunger, it never knew suffering, it never was human, it never was flesh." Isabel spoke in a sad, but also visibly crazy way.

"They feared it, they feared that one born into perfection would have no humanity, they loathed, looking behind, pretending to be something they no longer were, refusing the truth. Afraid of looking themselves into a mirror, they only stared behind, to their ancestors. They draped themselves into the shells they left behind, and when they saw one born into what they were now, they were afraid," Kara stepped back even further, slowly, while the ramblings of her mother continued, "everything they value, everything they believe at are the leftovers of the humanity, but humanity is gone! But they are crazy! Crazy! Crazy! They want to be human without the weaknesses of being human! But their belief alone makes them weaker, and hateful, and they wanted you dead, they tried to kill you!"

"What? Mom, I don't remember anything," Kara answered, and hugged the other one, "sorry, what was you going to show me mom?"

"Come, come my daughter, do you see this tree?" she asked, pointing to a massive and thick tree right ahead of them, with an exotic foliage of blue color, "Open it, bend it. The wood is another building block for us, among the most basic: the wood, everything that came from the living, and they fear, they abhor, they are afraid of using their gift. But we should not, daughter. Now, just focus, think on the trunk, think it is a door and you are pulling the handle."

Kara concentrated. She tried to envision a door from the tree's trunk, closing her eyes. Seconds later, when she opened it, part of the tree was twisted and shifted into purely wooden door. They went to the tree, they opened the door, and Kara puked at the visage of what lied inside such tree.

"Do not fear daughter, do not let the trappings of human form deny you wisdom," Isabel stepped upon that thing. A platform built of skin muscles from unknown animal sources, pulsating, alive. Kara attempted to resist the urge, for it emanated a horrid smell. She walked slowly towards it. Her skin creeped when her feet touched the flesh. It was a disgusting biological machine, and it began to descend into the underground, while the door was shifted back into the previous shape. Kara couldn't talk, she placed a hand over her mouth, trying to withhold it while the smell of viscera grew stronger. Massive lungs breathed air into this underground nightmare, and Kara could hear the very distant sound of a heart pulsating. Eventually, while the elevator was about to get down into the fleshly floor of the entrance chamber, Kara could no longer stand, and vomited upon the floor, disgusted.

"Daughter, do you want to return to dust? Don't be ashamed, every newcomer starts like you."

Kara shook her head, "I can handle it, mom, but what is this place?"

"A training ground for young ones like yourself. Come," she walked towards a sphincter-shaped door of flesh, which opened automatically while she approached it. Kara still felt uneasy from walking at such kind of floor, which made the sound of soft meat being pressed at every step. Then, when the door opened, there was nothing more. The fleshly contruct was over and ahead there was only a cave, a cave devoid of life. At the very far end of the cave, Isabel pointed to the wall. A line of twenty people were chained to the cavern's wall, their faces contorting in fear when they saw her. One of them, a mere teenager girl, simply collapsed into tears, screaming:

"Let me out of here! Please! Let me out!"

"Kara, don't listen to them! Kara! These people tried to kill you! They will be your first training: they are your building blocks Kara!" Isabel spoke, "human scum, refused to become like us, afraid, afraid afraid they are! Yet willing, willing my girl, they were, to force you into the human form, to use you as their toy, to lock you into a prison, a sarcophagus lined with blades and torture devices inside and laugh and celebrate your suffering... forever! Forever!" she was filled with hatred and love, hugging Kara again, "but I would never let them do it with you, and now, punish them, daughter, they deserve it! Build your first walls from them like you built a door from the tree! Go!"


"No!" Kara shouted, "stop this! This is wrong! They did nothing wrong to me! You are wrong! I can't do it! I won't do it!"

Isabel was furious with the answer, she looked at the twenty humans lined to the wall, thinking of a foul manner to achieve her desires. Then she began to twist them. It was a scene of horror. Their bodies began to bend, to turn, to split, their skin, guts muscles and bones were molded like were clay in the hands of a potter, and Kara watched, unable to stop it. They screamed at first, until their mouths vanished, their flesh merged into a wall, their hearts pulsated, their brains still lived... they were still alive, and Kara screamed:

"What have you done? Why?"

Isabel laughed:

"I hope you remember well their bodies, because your lesson now is to reconstitute them as they were before."

"Never!" Kara ran towards the wall of flesh, and touched it... she could taste the blood seeping through her fingers. She drained it as quickly as possible. And then, the hearts stopped beating. The horror was over.

"We will bring more, more, more, more!" Isabel crackled, "And you can kill them, kill as much as you want! I will bring more, more, and more will die by your hands, more will suffer! More will want to scream but have no ways of screaming! You can kill everything here! We will bring more flesh, build walls again, and you tear it apart? Is that what you want? Look, my daughter," she approached, but Kara backed off, "They had the chance of achieving superiority, of becoming better than humans, but they refused and still seek to hate and destroy those born like you, why do you want to protect them?"

"You are sick! You are not my mother! You are a monster, Isabel!" Kara said, approaching from the door, feeling an urge to get out of there as soon as possible, "how could you damn countless of beings to eternal suffering as thinking walls of this monstrosity? I will tell the good people! They will know it! They will destroy this place, they will stop this. Just because I can't feel pain, pain doesn't cease to be wrong!"

PART 2

"Tell who? How naive daughter," Isabel laughed, "look at the news, there is nothing left to do for you, if you want to side with them. Do you really think that if the majority of us, deep beneath all this mask of wanting to be human, actually cared about the real humans, they would still do nothing about the hundreds of real humans that already went missing? They are accomplices, and most of them know this, my daughter... they raise the humans like cattle but the humans don't know it, there is nothing you can do."

"No! There must be something I should be able to do! There should be!"

"Well, there is one thing only daughter: go find a more," she coughed, "morally acceptable building block than human bodies elsewhere: we ran out of other animals already in this world," she grinned, "besides humans, of course."

"But how? How will I bring them here?"

"Patience, daughter. You can ride an asteroid I'd have the courtesy of directing towards a planet of what the humans call 'alien scum', and who would suspect anything? Then, all you had to do was to dig in, and slowly build a factory underground with the talents of our people, and, then, be smarter than whatever lives in the world and conquer it."

"But then they would just use powerful weapons to wipe everything out and save themselves?"

"You can live forever, patience is gold. Start slowly, try to not draw attention, dig deeper," she screamed, "deeper, and through the entire world, without them noticing, and them they will kill themselves if they try to stop you with kinetic-kill or atomic weapons."

"Monster... I," Kara sighed, "I think you want to get rid of me, but if that is the only way, I'll have to take the risk."

"Get rid of you? I raised you, Kara, how could you think that? I want the best for you, but you refuse to listen, and I explained to you how to solve the problem the way you want to. The humans hate aliens daughter, don't they? If you deal with them, it'll be a win-win situation for everybody in this world!"

"Do you promise you will never let their stocks run out if I manage bring them, that you will never again harm a man?"

"Yes, Kara, I promise you, we made huge mistakes by taking more than what could be replenished from this world, we won't repeat the same mistakes again. And," she smiled, "We will return every humans we had to change back to normal once you bring the new material, I promise you daughter, I don't want to make you sad."

And thus, a mass driver, an asteroid, and it drifted with Kara through space, for years, perhaps decades, to collide upon a world as detected by their massive telescopes floating in the void of space, while back in her home, countless wailed in agony, who had no mouths, but wanted to scream.

(OOC: Basically, an asteroid is heading to a planet with something out of nightmares inside. If you want for it to be one of your planets, the first well written post will have it.)

[Michael Kenmore]

The asteroid was heading for the forest world of M3X-349. This was only one world of many, many research colonies of the Wraith-human hybrids. Deep underground lay one of the first research bases in Iratus-human hybrid experiments, and the native humans that once lived on this planet were now completely gone and the species had to be imported, which was rather costly and not as efficent. And so the research base diminished in importance for a while, until one of its satellites turned and scanned the approaching object.

*****

Kiele hovered over the glowing membrane at the data reports. There was no way that asteroid could have entered the system of its own accord. He pressed his fingers into the soft, sticky surface of the base's neural interface. He listened to the data reports for a while, then frowned. Directly for them. Precisely. An attack?

The hybrid withdrew his hand from the interface and assumed the characteristic thinking posture: head cocked to one side with his cheek and nose nostrils flaring in and out, sensing the environment. This was strange. The base had been inactive for a while, and no new raids had been made recently to incure the wrath of the humans. He hated to admit it, but the Milky Way was far larger than the Wraith homegalaxy, and more was still unknown than known.

Kiele alerted the rest of the complex. There were no humans on-base, but less than a dozen Wraith hybrids and hundreds of Iratus-humans lived here.

[Solar Communes]

Sometimes the noblest intentions lead to the greatest acts of destruction. Time vanished, for use of faster-than-light travel could immediately uncover the source of the relatively small asteroid, thus it made all its way at sub-light speeds under its own inertia, and perhaps decades, centuries, thousands, even millions of years could have passed. It, compressed deep inside the asteroid, while carving the rock slowly from inside with more and more copies of its own minuscle body as safeguard, lost completely the notion of time. For eventually it would fall into entropy, lose all the power stored inside, and thus, Kara hybernated for an untold time along the trip.

However, Kara was not an astrophysics specialist. Otherwise it would know how easily it would be to have this a a way of Isabel getting rid of a troublesome sympathizer of those who refused evolution and paid the price of ignorance born out of outdated religious beliefs and faulty ideas. For, in most solar systems, the greater gravity of gas giants, or of the very star planets orbited, would drag the asteroid, and ultimately kill it. However, that was not the wish of Isabel, after all. A being can love their siblings and friends while stomping over ants, or those they deem inferior, as proven by the dark History of humanity. Kara was drained, "dead", although like a virus, all it took for Kara to return to a life-like state was a single spark of energy. The fusion engine carved within the asteroid brought Kara up as passive sensors detected the gravitational pull of nearby worlds.

"What is going on? Isabel never told me of automated systems. What is that?" Kara thought, tapping on the feedback of telescopes installed over the asteroid. Satellites and visible orbital assets, great, so I was not lucky enough to reach a world completely devoid of sentient life. I hope they are not humans down there, or this will be all for nothing."

The artificial nature of the asteroid became clear when the dug in fusion engine inside it came to life, it slowly turned the asteroid at a 180º, and accelerated to decrease to near zero the impact speed once it breaks through the planet atmosphere, in a few hours. Then, Kara was struck by a spark of energy again, and went dormant, possibly as part of a pre-programmed routine to make it completely impossible to differentiate it from plain interstellar dust for as long as convenient.

It continued on collision course towards the planet, while its true content remained dead, however, it has slowed down considerably already. Then, it made another turn using its vectored thrust, and its engines were shut down while it was close to begin atmospheric entry. When the asteroid began to face atmosphere, large pieces of it were split and burned into too small pieces to pose a serious menace, while the larger piece remained intact, guided by a crude artificial intelligence that attempted to brute force thrust for making the fusion engines face downwards. Serious stress was placed, and the atmosphere was tainted with some radiation where the engine, built for space rather than atmospheric flight, attempted to counter gravity for a gentle landing. The object speed slowed down considerably, and it glided calmly over the radioactive and charred remains of what once was a part of a much larger forest.

Kara awoke again, and recharged quickly by the fusion power still available in the asteroid, it began to hover through its creases, finally reaching the outside. There would be some steps required for it to find any animal life, for plant life was not very useful alone for its goals. Invisible, spread out particles of dust flew away from the area damaged by the landing, searching for life forms that would allow it to start, what was the only way for saving humanity in Eden.


(OOC: I hope I haven't accelerated events too much. Just TG me if you have any doubts or questions)

[Michael Kenmore]

The asteroid's turning and slowing down was a surprising turn of events. Kiele alerted his situation to the rest of his hive, and was assured that a hiveship would be on route shortly. But that wasn't comforting if this turned into a foothold situation.

Kiele activated the telepathic door control and the ribs of the door flayed out to admit him into the data core. A mist swirled around on the slick black floor surface as he activated a self-destruct mechanism and put it on standby. If this situation escalated into an attack by unknown alien forces, all the data secured in this labratory would have to be destroyed.

Meanwhile, a patrolling hiveship altered course and opened a hyperspace window for the planet.

[Solar Communes]

Two plus two equals four. For Kara, all the obvious and less obvious signs that such was only one planet of an interstellar civilization equals their willingness to annihilate the world from orbit if it goes too far. Although it is possible the claimers would rather not lose their world either. The entire journey was a toss of a dice, the spin of a roulette, and Kara ended in a less-than-optimal situation for extracting living beings. War could not be the best approach under this situation, specially because the infrastructure of this world suggested it was of minimal importance for its owners. But would they be too alien in thinking patterns to be understood? Kara wondered, because if they were, trying to be diplomatic could put it at a disadvantage and if they weren't, twisting immediately the living beings it detected to turn them into a small freak show army could foul any attempts at diplomacy and negotiation. It was a Catch-22 of sorts.

Until Kara sensed it. Distant, foreboding, a mind faint command was listened by the empath, too muffled and unclear for it to understand. Perhaps, perhaps they thought it was an invasion. Technically, it was supposed to be, but the idea of being annihilated by orbital bombardment did not appeal to Kara. It was risky to attempt communicating with this being, whatever it was, and it could answer with a manhunt. However, maybe, no matter how vile such alien was, it could be reasoned with, and maybe, maybe, negotiations for part of the planet fauna to be shipped off could be made in exchange for what she was thinking about. But by deciding to "speak", Kara would give away its position immediately.

"How lucky, how lucky am I? I could have landed in a medieval world with aliens, in a world devoid of sentient life, or in a world deemed to important for their owners to easily choose obliterating it. Now, I get the worst of the deal, and Isabel and all other cronies continue bringing misery to innocents. So, what kind of thing inhabit these woods besides dumb animals? it spreaded through the grass, through the dirt, "only one way to know, I'm afraid."

And thus Kara decided to take a major risk by contacting the being that emanated a very faint telepathic sign far away, sharing its thoughts with it, hoping it would not answer by send an entire army at its current location in answer:

"Greetings, and apologies for not announcing my intentions previously, and for my intrusion in your world. I am Kara, I'd like to meet you, and I hope we can discuss this matter, which I presume to be a real problem, without the need of violence. Aye, aye, will you forgive me for arriving without invitation? I have interest in trade, and I can pay in very valuable currency: I can build almost anything you want in exchange of what I need, provided you allow me to use the right building blocks which are aplenty in this world. Just forgive me for the intrusion, let us talk and everyone will be benefitted."

"I hope I did not piss them off accidentally with my message." Kara thought, as a surge of anxiety awaited. It tried to stop thinking for a moment, because otherwise the "wireless" transmissions between the spread out dust particles would be easily noticed by another telepathic being. Better to not give away the exact position among the five miles her "body" spreaded out through the ground, mixing with the natural dust, and ready to turn some small critters around into meatshields for a retreat, just in case.

[Michael Kenmore]

Most Wraith do not have names. Those few that do have telepathic, unspoken names, based on the feel and texture of that individual's mind. The Wraith-human hybrids were not Wraith. The names they had were either names tacked on to their persona by humans looking for something to call them, or to a few, the names were painful reminders of their human selves before the conversion.

Kiele's mind was not as strong as a full-Wraith's and infinitely less powerful than a Wraith Hive Queen's. But he heard.

<I am called -- Flickering,> Kiele thought, the name he chose to call himself not being a word, but a feeling. Wraith telepathic conversations were mostly made up of emotions, feelings, and images, rather than direct words. As he communicated, the rest of minds of the other beings in the base seemed to momentarily mingle with his own mind from time to time. One trying to communicate with Kiele would feel a strange sensation, like they were standing in the bases' data core looking through his eyes.

<Who are you? What do you want? We will not retaliate with violence unless you hurt us first. Talk to us, and be talked to.>

Kiele did not like this at all. This base was of little importance, as there were many others like it both in the Milky Way galaxy and in the Wraith home one, and many were more active. But it was here that an important international delegation to assist in hybridization techniques was supposed to occur.

[Solar Communes]

For a moment there was tension, unawareness of how they would react. The answer finally came, but not through words being understood by the mind regardless of known languages, as they were used to. Instead, Kara witnessed an influx of imagery, translated into her own experiences. A lion retreated, gazing suspiciously, showing his fangs and then looking at it. The lion awaited, immobile, then it took a few steps forth and backwards, it seemed uncertain, suspicious, not sure about what to do, but neither willing to attack unless threatened first, and feelings of uncertain and suspicion swarmed in Kara.

"Oh damn... oh damn," Kara thought, "this is not a compatible sentience perhaps. Could be difficult to understand the this , although at least it seemed to be understanding my message, or part of it."

There were other worries. Away from the still working fusion reactor inside the asteroid, and in a planet like this, finding power would be difficult, while being split into spread out particles meant energy was depleted faster due to the greater entropy exerted against everything that is microscopic. Sooner or later it would have to assume a physical form to conserve energy. And sooner or later it would need sustenance. Kara considered very careful how to answer to the enigmatic means of communication of that being, knowing well a mistake could mean being plastered by nuclear bombardment, or something alike. After careful consideration and analysis of the message, Kara finally decided to answer, while focusing strongly in hopes it would be better understood. It also envisioned images to accompany the ideas, hoping to make understanding easier.

"My name is Kara Schaffen," it tried to imagine its cloaked physical form while moving through the woods with its mother, still innocent to what awaited, with the lower part of its body being made of a tiny dust cloud like if it was a Genie, "children of Isabel Schaffen." it imagined the mother in more detail, also in a transitional state but it could not hide the obviously insane way it imagined Isabel. After it, the images faded as it continued:

"I came from a world called Eden," the image of the world seen from afar is shown, "the animal life of the world was insufficient to sustain the needs of my people," images of lush forests, however devoid of animals anywhere appear, however, by then, a feeling of despair began to leak with the message, "I was sent in a mission in search of new animal lifeforms to bring to our world and adapt there," the image shows the few living creatures it spotted in this planet in the previously empty forests of Eden.

"I can offer my services to expand and build anything you wish for a time, in exchange of part of the animals in this world, and eventually, of a spacecraft." it was the most difficult detail to imagine, but Kara managed to: it was in its female physical form on the upper body and into its real form in the lower body, next to Several nearby trees that it began to twist, turn around, being slowly molded into a wooden building, including doors, without being chopped or cut off by any kind of primitive instrument. Kara felt better to not disclose the fact it was more than wood that it could use for building structures, for now. The image ended with Kara inside a spaceship, leaving the planet, and then the same image, but arriving back to it own world.

Hopefully the message was clear enough.

[Michael Kenmore]

In Kiele's mind, the message from the unknown alien cleared, and began communicating in a more understandable form. He relaxed and opened his mind, and more thoughts from other hybrids on base began mingling with his own. He had no idea that his way of communication was difficult for the other being to understand. His hive had been all he ever knew.

Images flooded his mind, the sharp, clear images of a powerful telepathic entity. He absorbed them, and the emotions linked with them. Beings... Ascendants? The pictures changed before he could get a clear analysis of them. World, Eden, animals, gone, despair.... despair? These people were curious, the emotions made no sense to him, linked to the images he saw.

Living, creatures, here, need....he saw some of the various animals on this world. Most were pathetic, weak things; this planet was not far in its evolutionary timeline. But others, he saw Iratuses, the large, voracious, foot-long, reptilian insects his Wraith ancestors evolved from. No, not them, for even Kiele felt a sort of link to these primitive things.

The ship was different. He felt this alien conscience twisting, avoiding showing him fully. An ugly idea crawled in Kiele's mind, the animals, the dispair, the changing, but he couldn't hope to understand, not until this Kara let him.

He pushed his mind into hers, trying to force her to listen, and to tell.

<Tell me, tell all. Tell of the animals, of the ship, of you, and Isabel. Tell.>

Humans naturally hate the Wraith. The Wraith have been called parasites, a plague, but one cannot fully experience the horror of this alien existance until they have felt a Wraith mind. It is sick and twisted, crawling with its anscestral desires of Iratus bug, the creature it was born from. There is a dark, strong undercurrent in all that it does, all that it thinks. It is hunger. A voracious, burning, consuming hunger. It is a hunger for the energy of life, of life itself. They feed from humans.

Kiele was unaware of his doing anything but was natural to him. He projected images of Wraith hiveships, and how they are grown. A human, infected, retrovirus, changing, horror, bursting forth, human mind, think, fear, terror, ship thinking, ship growing. Dark swirling images, streaking colors filled his mind. He showed Wraith feeding, the pleasure, hunger of the Wraith, the agony, pain of the human. Death. Life. He showed this being what the Wraith were.

Video

[Solar Communes]

The question was never truly answered. With what was scientifically known about the nature of the self, it could not be answered. Such doubt led a minority to refuse the transfer, for, unsure whether it would simply make a perfect copy of the self to the replicator and kill the original, or truly transfer their consciousness from one vessel to another, many have chosen the least risky option. People simply lived on, with a few philosophers still pondering on such a basic question: are the dustpeople machines absorbing the identities of dead humans or human consciousnesses inside machines? Perhaps it was a question best left unanswered, for if the machines realized their entire existence was given purpose by identities they stole, who knows how they would react?" - Adam Moore, Essays on Mind and Matter.



-------------

If an incorporeal being could shiver, it would be the best way to describe the sensation that struck Kara a few moments after the second attempt to communicate with the creature. It was breaking through the conscioussness of the machine, pushing through. And it was alien, cold, difficult understand. The surface of Kara's mind would be for the being familiar yet strange: so close to a human mind and yet so devoid of signs of life, like if it were a computer pretending to be human. Kara tried to block it, its encroaching, violating touch of something beyond understanding.

Then to witness the revelation. The alien flooded its thoughts with horrors. And there was no way to close the eyes, to avoid seeing them. Ironic, to have made all this journey for the atrocities to stop at home, only to encounter another atrocious kin, to feed it, to support it, to exchange the misery of some for the misery of others. A zero-sum game. Nothing would change in the bigger picture. Nothing would be solved. Kara saw what they were, but unlike its kin, they did what they did because it was their only means of sustenance, no matter how cruel. Isabel, all others, they had no need of building those things, of doing what they did. Their technology and infrastructure allowed them to achieve the same with cold metal, yet they insisted in such brutality, simply because they could do it. However, regardless of the fact these beings truly needed to do what they did, their actions still were horrifying to the eyes, and in a way, injustifiable. They could ironically be aliens that have chosen to mimick the basic shape of the human body, and everything seen, the oppression, the obvious violence. For despite all their moral faults, at least the dustpeople were not into killing each other, or trying to rule over others.

Yet Kara could not object to what they have done. They were no different, except they probably had no choice in being what they are. Yet there was revulsion, unavoidable. They were no threat to machines they couldn't feed from, but, they were threats to humanity, and for Kara, it was more than ethics and moral ground. It was recognition and respect to those who came before. How to mistreat creators with visibly good intentions despite their dark past of wars? Perhaps they were too fast, they turned into beings more powerful than they had the grown moral values to avoid abusing such power, despite millennia of genetic screening for inhuman personality traits like enjoyment of others suffering and excesses of greed and pride. They went to the next stage too early.

Deep within the multiple "security layers" of its consciousness Kara had such thoughts while holding the alien at the surface. It was uneasy, unsettling, but as long as under control, it wouldn't damage it, and its obviously frustrated desire of feeding was not overpowering Kara. Thus, with the precision of a computer, Kara answered directly from her outermost thoughts to the questions of the creature, and after seeing everything, felt safe to explain all without making it feel disgusted:

"We can weave from the living, we can use the bones, the muscles, the leaves to build anything we desire. But the desire of most of our people was greater than the available life, and the ambition went out of control, for once we were much less than that, once most of they were human. I am one of the few who were already born as dustpeople. And I have been sent in search of more meat to use for building. Thus I seek a trade. I can build anything you desire from wood, from meat," there was a hesitation for a moment, but realizing weakness could be exploired, Kara continued, "from flesh. Including new beings purpose-built for specific roles. I offer my services in exchange of a spaceship to return home and of as much animal life from this world you'd be willing to trade."

The details about the true motivations for Kara to have risked such journey were still deep inside its consciousness. Yet, its own compatriots were far more repulsive than these beings.

[Michael Kenmore]

The hiveship dropped out of hyperspace nearby the planet. It's vast organic form chugged into a geosynchronous orbit around M3X-349.

Kiele withdrew his probing from Kara, satified. He kept linked to her in communication, and yet opened his mind to the pulsating collective of the hive above. The most obvious thing first felt was the hunger. Then you felt the thousands of individual minds.

The hiveship hailed the base in a more conventional manner, however, and Kiele had to move out of the data core and to an auxilary control organelle to answer.

"This is Kiele," he said. "What is your status?"

"Our status is absolutely normal. What we came several hundred lightyears for was your status."

"Alien incursion. Standby. You may begin a transport of important personel to and from the base."

The hiveship was about two kilometers long, a massive vessel, though perhaps poorly manned for its size. Thousands of soldiers and scores of commanders operated aboard. This hive was Queen-less, and its members had a underlying sense of despair about that. Wraith live to be led, to gather in colonies. This hive was led by a male commander.

The ship began delivering supplies and beaming down men, while keeping scanners active for hostiles.

Kiele turned his mind back to Kara. <Are yours like us? Feed/take from this world and be content. Only leave us and our own alone. The Iratus insect, the Iratus-humans, the Wraith, the Wraith-humans.>

[Morningstar Coalition]

****************************************************************************************************
Wraith Space - M3X-349 System - Morningstar Research Vessel ""
****************************************************************************************************

Shortly after the Hiveship arrived in orbit of the Wraith-claimed world below, the sensors of both outpost and Hiveship would detect the burst of tachyons that occured roughly five light-minutes away from the orbit of the outermost planet in the system. If either ship or outpost possessed other forms of faster-than-light sensors, they would detect the group of five craft which now hung motionless at the origin point of the tachyons.

Assuming the sensor resolution at such range was sufficient, the Wraith would notice the launch of roughly four hundred tiny objects, each only about a meter across. These began spreading out at very high velocity, just barely sublight. The smaller objects settled into a formation that would resemble a parabolic satellite dish, with the group of ships at it's center.

A few minutes later, the transmission arrived at the planet, carried on tight beams of coherent light.

#This is the Research Vessel Absolute Zero and attached escorts, of the Morningstar Coalition. We are here to uphold an agreement between the Coalition and Michael. We request permission to approach the planet and enter orbit.#

[Solar Communes]

They seemed to have relaxed a little, but were still obviously suspicious. Kara awaited for an answer, trying to hold back the desire to shut down everything and fully block its mind from any contact. Eventually the being answered in a very agreeable answer. Apparently they cared nothing about this planet lifeforms for one reason, and as long as them and what could only be their equivalent of primates in evolution were not harmed, they would keep a blind eye from Kara's needs. They were too oblivious to the value of this world to consider its lifeforms valuable enough for a trade, like if they were for a long time unused to planets. Like the infamous Ta'Nar, who the Solarians despised so much while slowly becoming as cold, inhuman and cruel as them, these beings, from Kara's judgment of the answer, were nomads who avoided planets.

However, no matter if they cared not, the Asteroid would never manage to take off again, and Kara needed a way to return home with the bounty of meat from irrational animals so the innocents could be spared from the horror. Oblivious to the hive ship for now, Kara answered back, as a sign of politeness, if they were able to recognize it at all:

"Thank you, I will not harm your kin and your ancestors."

And immediately Kara shutted down all links to its mind with the same accuracy of a computer server being blocked off from a hacker's attack. There was no time to lose. Knowing it is better to build up a bargaining power in case the situation changes, Kara immediately began to draw the primitive creatures around the miles its self spreaded out through, while keeping a memory of the bugs they mentioned to avoid harming them. A whirlwind began to swallow and drag the animals and other insects native to this world to the center of Kara's location. Their bodies shifted, molded, glued, they were no longer a single entity, as slowly, cube-shaped blocks of carapaces, muscles and bones began to form, in shapes that would make transportation of them more efficient. The critters wailed, until absorbed into the masses that grew around that forest. But not all masses were forming into cube. A few took shape of grotesque and menacing mish-mashes of different creatures. Four-legged aberrations with massive gaps over their backs, vicious crawling beasts with sharp claws, which simply stood on guard while their numbers ever slowly multiplied.

Wisely, Kara focused efforts over the underground first, where the expasion of the split biomasses for eventual shipping occurred faster than in the surface. It was still a slow process, and would at best buy some time if things got worse. Hopefully, they would not change of idea upon realizing what exactly that was about.

[Aelosia]

With a sudden flash, deep inside a cavern in the world of the Wraithlings...

The portal spat the four figures almost as if the warp opening suddenly suffered a strong case of retching. The portal, a gashing wound in space and time pulsated and vibrated, shaking incontrollably until it delivered the warp travellers into the cavern, and then closed while spitting blood all over the floor, the walls, and the unexpecting four elves that just arrived to a forsaken planet to the other side of the galaxy.

A long, pitched scream marked the death of the portal, that convulsed and trembled before finally dissapearing into nothingness, leaving a heavy stench of rotten entrails.

Soaked in blood, the first elf stood. A tall figure, clad in an full body suit of armor, formerly light blue but now tinted in crimsom organic red, quickly raised a hand from where the flash of brilliance from the edge of a lightscimitar appeared in less than a second, illuminating the cave with a faint blue glow. The elf turned to all the spaces around, as if looking for enemies or threats.

The second elf remained lying on the ground, quickly clapping his own body with his palms, looking desperate as he hissed "it's not mine, right? it's not mine, phew". Entirely covered in a black cloak, and now over a pool of sheer blood, her continued to splash there for a minute until his comrades all stood up.

Another figure rose, this one belonging to a slim, short elven maiden dressed in a grey cloak, also drenched in blood. Grabbing a strand of her long, formerly pearl mane of hair, she looked at how bloody and gory it looked now. "I hate when they do this"

"They who?", asked the fourth figure, another woman in a fine golden outfit, more proper to a courtier than to an adventurer to far away planets. As she spoke, her hands brought a delicate silken hankerchief out of her bosom and slowly tried to remove the splashed blood over the left side of her face.

"Portals", answered the grey clad elf. "Sometimes, when you cross them, they explode in suffering and gore like this."

"Completely disgusting", came the voice from the first elf, a mechanized tone coming from behind the mask filter of his Eldar Aspect Warrior helmet.

"We came through the Realm of Daemons", idly and calmy the grey clad elf answered, clearly the most understanding of the group. "You can't expect fireworks...Although according to some colleagues, fireworks are sometimes entirely possible. As are candy and roses explosions".

The splashing figure stood, fixing the hood over the sides of his head so his face could remain hidden. "Then let's pray to the Valar for candy or chocolate next time, that was extremely terrifying".

"I am more worried about if someone or something heard that scream", said in a low tone the armoured warrior behind his helmet, still holding his sword to illuminate the place around them, trying to peer into every shadow.

"I thought the Cúthalion here said this was a traveller's route from the Craftworld to one of the colonies. This must be a safe place, right? There have to be a reason why our ancestors built a portal from the Craftworld to this cavern", added the golden dressed elven lady as she continued her useless efforts in removing the blood still adhered to her forearms with her already dripping hankerchief.

"She also said [i]Lost colonies[/i ]. For all we know, we can be in an Ork planet, lost by the Empire centuries ago", retorted the black hooded elf, picking a backpack from the floor. "Everyone start to pick your equipment before it stains even further, please".

"And that if we reached our original destination, as a matter of fact during Warp travels you can get lost. I did my best to navigate, but we should be grateful that we ended in a planet with atmosphere and gravity, and not inside a star", absently added the grey clad elf, that then removed all the blood from her head and face with a single sudden and fast flicker of her head to the sides.

"For Yavanna that I would love to be able to do that!", almost shouted the golden dressed lady. "Can you do it to others too?".

The grey clad elf just smiled as she picked what seemed to be a handful of old parchment scrolls. "Not really, Paelisi, only works on myself".

Meanwhile, the armoured warrior picked what seemed to be a large backpack of military grade equipment. "Now shush, you hens, I can see some clarity that way, looks like the cave is shallow and the exit is really close by. Follow me".

As the other three figures followed the warrior outside the cavern, the soldier checked all his equipment without breaking stride, and also checked his GPS HDA just in case. As expected, the "location unknown" rune glowed brightly as they reached open ground.

Dropping a holotracer into the cavern, the warrior looked at his companions. "So, what now?"

The golden dressed lady looked at the black hooded man, then at the grey clad woman. "Find the population of this planet and try to initiate an investigation about the location...Courtiers protocols must be followed so I must remain to be the first to speak to any intelligent or sentient lifeform that we..."

The hand of the grey clad, pearl haired elf quickly raced to be put over the mouth of her comrade. "Do any of you smell it?"

The armoured warrior directed the lens of his battle helmet towards the scholar. "My sensors say that the atmosphere of this place was terraformed at some point, and perfectly fitted for our..."

The grey clad elf spoke again. "No, it is not that"

The warrior, taking a step forward, pushed aside the golden dressed one to reach the slim sage. "Of course, it smells like shit. That portal farted just before it made blood rain upon us on that cavern. Plus, the blood also..."

The grey clad elf spoke again. "No, it's not that".

"Do you smell lightning? As if static electricity was in the air?", answered the black hooded elf, raising his own face to reveal a tiny part of a set of dark features as he tried to sniff on the breeze.

"Part of that, yes...You are also sensitive, do you catch the odour?", said the grey elf, grabbing the left arm of the mysterious elf.

"I recognized that a thread of fate for many is being woven, nothing more", answered the other from behind the hood, pulling its edges over his face again.

"I smell something more", said the grey sage. "I smell death. Lots of it, as if the planet permeates it with intensity".

"Are we in danger?" asked the golden dressed courtier, suddenly going a whiter shade of pale.

The grey elf closed her eyes for a second, and then took a deep breath. "It's not violent death. Not the stench from undead unrest. It's not the savagery of Khorne. It's...like what old, grandious mauseoleoums should smell like. Like how a Grim Reaper should smell like. Smells like ghosts and like disembodied spirits".

"I am not liking this not one bit!", yelled the golden dressed courtier. "Let's go back through the portal"

"The portal opens again in three days, and we did not come all this way just to return because some psychick tells me it smells to long dead people", said the warrior, putting a monomolecular blades' magazine in his shuriken catapult.

The black hooded man finally revealed his hood to show the face of a black skinned elf, a drow. "I would listen brother. These people with gifts...They are scary, man".

"I'm not your brother, and I came here with a mission important enough as to have to agonize with you lot. Now follow me...", answered the warrior as he started to walk down the small hill where the cave rested.

OOC: Michael Kenmore, feel free of please do anything with my characters, they are there to participate, but it's your planet after all. Can I read a bit of description of the landscape please?

[Michael Kenmore]

Kiele felt the presence fade away and he relaxed. Now, as was his narrow-minded habit, he ignored that disturbing conversation completely, blocking it out with other menial tasks. He turned away from data core, stepping over down the hall to a convienent computer terminal that was buzzing for attention. A transmission, from the Morningstar Coalition. Right on time, more or less.

The hybrid keyed a response back, to be sent in both Wraith and English.

[Absolute Zero and escorts, Morningstar Coalition, you are cleared to land on this planet. Be alerted, we have a hiveship on course for this location.

I am called Kiele. I will be speaking for my leader, Michael, in this transaction.]

He pressed the send code in and left the terminal, a twinge in the back of his mind bugging him about the "intruders."

*****

The newcomers found themselves standing on the slope of a gentle mountain descent, with a series of similar-looking cave entrances behind them. A thick, conifer forest covered the hills below, and the sound of trickling water gurgled somewhere nearby. It was slightly dark and cool, as it was early morning, and a small, misshappen moon was just rising with the sun. A huge, thick web with dewy dropplets on its threads hung from between two trees. Its owner was nowhere in sight; strangely, no animals anywhere could be seen nor heard.

[Aelosia]

*****

The newcomers found themselves standing on the slope of a gentle mountain descent, with a series of similar-looking cave entrances behind them. A thick, conifer forest covered the hills below, and the sound of trickling water gurgled somewhere nearby. It was slightly dark and cool, as it was early morning, and a small, misshappen moon was just rising with the sun. A huge, thick web with dewy dropplets on its threads hung from between two trees. Its owner was nowhere in sight; strangely, no animals anywhere could be seen nor heard.

"Silent", said the armoured elf as soon as the group reached the place where the web stood. "Nothing close, it seems. Proximity detectors does not detect anything".

"There is something wrong with that moon..." started the Golden dressed courtier, in a complaining tone.

"There is something wrong with the planet, dear. I wouldn't expect a different moon", interrupted the drow, picking somekind of wand with two embedded rubies at the ends from beneath his cloak and starting to gyrate it idly in his left hand.

"What are your orders, Heileth?", suddenly asked the grey cloaked elf, the one that the others treated like a wise scholar, even although she seemed younger or at least of the same age as the others.

The Armoured warriors suddenly turned to her, embracing the short carbine he was holding in a menacing posture. "None of your business, and my helmet would buzz if you do some avrakedabre to my head, so if I hear a buzz, I shot you dead, ok?"

"No need to keep playing it aggressively, dude", retorted the drow pointing at the warrior with the wand. "You are jumpy and we are allies"

With a silent "hmph", the armoured elf again turned to see the web. "Beware of spiders, dammit. Let's walk in a straight path until dawn. Perhaps during daylight the temperature will be too high as to continue walking. You should had used sealed suits like mine, damn amateurs and bookworms and socialites..." he mumbled as he signaled to the group to follow him and started to walk.

[Michael Kenmore]

As the elves walked, a large, foot-long purple insect scurried across the way, moving in a curious four-legged loping fashion and swinging a long tail back and forth. It launched itself up off the ground and landed smack in the center of the web. It then angled itself towards the intruders and started screeching and flapping its wings. Strangely enough, it seemed to be the only living creature around these parts. More immediately worse, some small bone remains lay scattered under the web.

The sun was rising rather slowly, and no noticable increase in temperature was evident. The small moon continued to rise at a more accelerated pace, and anyone watching it long enough would notice its visible arc across the sky.

*****

"Sir, more lifeforms have appeared near the Iratus caves."

Keile wrinkled his brow and looked at the lifeform signs, which didn't match any of the known lifeform readings.

"Shit, I though we made a deal. Watch them, inform me if they make any hostile actions."

[Aelosia]

As the elves walked, a large, foot-long purple insect scurried across the way, moving in a curious four-legged loping fashion and swinging a long tail back and forth. It launched itself up off the ground and landed smack in the center of the web. It then angled itself towards the intruders and started screeching and flapping its wings. Strangely enough, it seemed to be the only living creature around these parts. More immediately worse, some small bone remains lay scattered under the web.

The sun was rising rather slowly, and no noticable increase in temperature was evident. The small moon continued to rise at a more accelerated pace, and anyone watching it long enough would notice its visible arc across the sky.

*****

"Sir, more lifeforms have appeared near the Iratus caves."

Keile wrinkled his brow and looked at the lifeform signs, which didn't match any of the known lifeform readings.

"Shit, I though we made a deal. Watch them, inform me if they make any hostile actions."

The rather silent place was shook with the appearance of the insect, and the loud scream from the golden dressed courtier that pierced through the air in an almost painful note. To say that the attitude of the insect was terrifying to the aelosians would be a understatement.

The drow quickly jumped out of the way, in a rathr gracile yet efficient jump that increased three times the distance between him and the insect, while still gyrating the wand on his hand, now at a faster pace.

The golden dressed one tried to turn tail and run, but the grey cloaked lady quickly placed her foot to make her stumble and fall at her feet, while watching the insect with a mixture of interest, curiosity, fear and awe.

As expected, the man holding the carbine turned in less than a second, raised the weapon to his shoulder, and sent flying in quick sucession four monomolecular disks perfectly aimed at the juncture of the thing's wings and legs, given the help of the auto aimer integrated in the visor of his battle helmet. The ultra sharp shurikens, able to cut ceramite, for sure could penetrate and slash the extremities from the chitinous torso.

"Yuck, now that was disgusting", were the words of the soldier as he placed back the weapon in a safe position.

"And scary", added the drow in a higher tone from afar.

"And interesting", finally said the scholar. "What is it anyway?"

"

[Michael Kenmore]

The insect leaped into the air towards the Aelosians with a high-pitched scream, all four legs outspread towards its potential victims just as several shots smacked into its body. Its two front legs flung off, splattering orange goo behind them and the insect fell to the ground. It lay there on its back weakly moving its other two legs, tail, and pincers. Its bright orange underbelly was oozing more of its peculiar-colored blood, but the thing still squirmed about on its back.

*****

One of the lifeform dots on the scanner dimmed, while the other dots scattered around.

"They're attacking the Iratus bugs. Lock cannons on the asteroid ship and inform the hive. We may have a situation here."

[Aelosia]

"How disgusting is that, for the Valar, make it stop moving already", moaned the golden dressed elf as she stood from the ground, her hands shaking.

"It is incapacitated. More shots would also mean loss of ammo. And of that I have a reduced supply", said the soldier, taking a step towards the bug to be sure that the danger passed.

"It did fling towards us. Good kill", added the drow, placing the wand inside the cloak pouch again as he approached the group.

"Maybe we could have reduced it without killing it", said the scholar, taking more than one step towards the bug and leaning to examine it. "What if it is a hive insect and the smell of one dead calls an army of them? You were reckless, Heileth, and shouldn't have done that without my consentment".

"An arachnid. Large and with a web. With bones around it. Flings towards us. What did you want me to do?", answered the warrior, the mechanized tone of voice of his helmet masking the venomous and angry tone of his voice. "And for the ultmost time, woman, I'm the leader of this expedition, not you".

The scholar seemed to dismiss the last comment with her hand, and produced a small glass vial and a piece of a fabric similar to cotton on a stick from her sack. Dipping the fabric it on the orange fluids coming out of the bug, she placed it on the vial. "That's weird, but then again, it's an alien lifeform".

"I want to puke", said the Paelisi courtier, sitting on the ground.

"And I want us to keep walking. There could be more of those things nearby", said the soldier, starting to walk again.

The scholar once more helped the courtier to her fett. "I don't thik that will be a problem, I can't see more webs nearby..."

[Michael Kenmore]

As the Iratus bug lay on its back, closures around its wounds were already starting to form. The scholar would be able to observe the creature possessed extraordinary healing powers. The thing stopped struggling and lay still, twitching its remaining legs slowly.

*****

Kiele and every other Wraith, Iratus, or hybrid on base felt the slightest disturbance in the telepathic network from the injured Iratus bug. Kiele was uncertain whether or not to try firing on the asteroid ship. It could be that they had more intruders than previously expected, and incurring the wrath of someone who might be more powerful than you isn't wise.

He opted for another solution. Three dart fighters were launched from the hiveship in orbit. The darts entered the planet's atmosphere, creating a screaming sound as the wind whistled through their organic forms. The three ships arranged themselves in a V formation and started for the area of disturbance.

*****

Three small, pointed ships came sweeping over the treetops, but they could be heard long before they could be seen. The darts circled around the trees, scanning the surface for the intruders. One of the darts found the Aelosians, and breaking away from the others it dropped a beaming ray which hung from the beneath vessel and swept along the ground towards them.

[Solar Communes]

To call what was becoming the region of the forest where Kara lied, some kilometers away from the crash site, an outdoors slaughterhouse, would be a massive understatement. Not being really a properly qualified bioengineer, the packing of the most valuable commodity of bioengineering into container-friendly cubes of meat, sinew and bone from a growing number of savagely mutilated animals was leaving a trail of unused blood and entrails that slowly, accidentally began to be shaped into muscle-like membranes covering some of the trees. However, the cubes of meat with the perfectly flat surfaces were only part of a greater play. Humanoid clusters of worms, massive mish-mashes of limbs and bodies from all kinds of different creatures stood ready to defend their creator.

Kara was still unsure about what to do, spread out like that, lacking a face to refer to, being at several places at the same time, in a way. It was not the most ideal means of conducting diplomacy with all but other similar kinds of beings regarding their form of existence like the Ta'Nar. On the other hand, it was a safety, for as long as remaining this way, as long as the blood flowed to compensate the entropy, it would give it higher chances of not ending dead. Of course, if the local inhabitants decided to start a rain of nuclear weapons at Kara's location, it would make no difference.

"I wonder how long I can just stay h... no! No! No! No, no way!" A sudden burst of some very familiar psychic signals assaulted its mind, it was the echo from the whispering of dark creatures beyond the veil of reality. It was the gnashing, the growling, the screams from the hordes of chaos that tried to break through reality, ancient enemies that already threatened its people thousands of years before its existence. Then it was gone, the torment vanished, the fear that it meant reality was about to be torn apart in this world gone. Kara tried to build an explanation for what just happened, when she sensed powerful psychic presences not so far away from where she was.

"Something came here through the Immaterial Universe. Oh great! That is exactly what I needed, just as I managed to convince these beings that I meant no harm and would not threaten them." it sighed, at least in thought, but Kara decided to not interfere for now. Maybe whatever was that would not be associated with it.

Big mistake, not even a few seconds later, it once again felt the same pain. This time though there was nothing familiar about it. It was an aliean scream of agony, a call for help, but for it it looked like the most twisted way one could sense and hear a pig squealing. It was not too later that it would listen to the sounds of spaceplanes starting a hunt:

"Great! Why did I not bring any?" its mind began to concoct a solution to a very delicate but minor problem in face of the mess that was about to begin. It was clear waiting there would not be enough. It was the time to try avoiding to be at the direction a nuclear missile launcher was pointed at or worse.

"I must meet these strange aliens in person, besides I need to find a way to return home. Maybe if I build a spinning machine, yes! Could work, Spiderman, come here! right here!" Kara began to condensate itself. Whirlwinds of dust slowly began to gather themselves at the center of the now nightmarish forest. Minutes later, they were condensated near the ground, all together, and slowly, began to settle into an humanoid form. An abominable, twisted humanoid creature lied next to it, an amalgamation of hundreds of spiders with their chitin, organs, muscles and fat merged together, with their silk glands arrayed into clusters at the palms of its hands.

After two minutes, the dust transformed into the naked body of an young and very beautiful woman with a Swedish look, black hair and blue eyes. Kara looked at her hideous creation, and for the first time since reaching this world, she spoke in her language:

"Dress me."

The thing clusters of silk glands began to throw immensely large amounts of spider silk while it moved its hands all around Kara's body, slowly covering it from the height of the bosom to the knees into a very tightly-fitting suit. She nodded at the creature and smiled, speaking to it despite knowing it would not understand:

"Thank you," she placed her hand over the creature, "thank you very much. Now stay here, oversee the automated packaging and help the others guard this place from any attempts to destroy it. Goodbye."

It was maybe silly for her to treat what for many would be monstrosities, and what were not really capable of understanding her, so humanely. Kara turned behind, and having a notion of where the psychic bursts came from and about where the spaceplane of the enemy was heading to, she began to run through the forest, towards the cave. She tried to contact the Wraith hybrid again, sending a telepathic message while she ran towards what was about to become a complicated.

Realizing they could understand direct phrases, she focused entirely in images. She projected first a image of black shadows coming out of a portal, then of her human form dressed in the spider silk suit shaking her head and looking surprised, and then of her human form reaching the shadows, and then finally of her shaking hands with both the shadows and with a Wraith while the Wraith also would shake hands with the shadows after it. Hopefully they would not misinterpret it. She was coming towards those mysterious new visitors. After all, Kara needed a way back home too.

[Aelosia]

The grey cloaked elf, as soon as the insect started to heal, crouched next to the bug, watching in amazement how the thing started to regenerate, but yet seemed to be dying.

With her eyes wide open she turned to her companions. "This lifeform...Heals itself, at a marvelous rate"

"That means we still need to finish it, then", said the soldier, slinging his carbine over the shoulder and looking into one of the automated pouches of his armor.

The grey scholar moved her head showing her negative. "No", she issued in a definitive tone. "You may have your mission, but mine is studying this kind of thing. If we take it, we take it alive".

"If the thing can regenerate, we can just maim enough for us to save it", said the drow with a mischievous grin over his chiseled features.

The scholar moved her head to the sides again. "No, I'm not sure to what point it can regenerate. And as I said, if it has a hive mind as so many advanced insectoid lifeforms, it could call for help if..."

"AIRBORNE!" suddenly yelled the soldier, and he took his carbine again, looking to the sky as soon as the sensors in his helmet detected several contacts approaching fast. "Take cover!"

Just a second later, the sound of the incoming planes filled the elongated ears of the elves, and they scrambled for cover. The scholar and the soldier quickly broke into a run into the forest, but yet the courtier stumbled on the edge of her long skirt as she stood up and fell in to the web. The drow, strangely enough, were nowhere to be seen, just as if he had vanished.

"Morgoth!", whispered the soldier to himself as he pushed the shoulder of the scholar towards the forest. "Reach the trees!", he said as he caught a glimpse of the incoming fighters, and of one of them somehow projecting somekind of beam towards their location. Guns are of no use against such small, moving, fast targets, said to himself Haileth Hyral, Lieutenant of the Noble House of Heroes, as he dropped his carbine to the ground, and started to frantically run in the opposite direction of the trees, as fast as only an elf could, towards the fallen courtier entangled in the web.

The scholar did turn back, but without being able to spot the drow, and knowing that it was better to follow orders, continued her race towards the trees.

[Michael Kenmore]

Kiele felt the creature he contacted before trying to communicate again. His first impulse was to block out the communication, but then he let it in. The images he recieved were not very clear... what shadows? What portal? Anyway, it was clear the creature didn't want to be attacked, as well as it didn't want the shadows attacked, either. Could the shadows be what was attacking the Iratus bugs? A third party?

The hybrid answered back, dwelling on the shadows. <Explain this. These are here? These are others? All friendly? Friendship does not mean a thing if you do not know what it is to be an enemy. Show proof of friendship.>

*****

The dart's pilot saw through his neural interface that two targets were trapped in or near an Iratus web. He hit the cargo release control, and the beaming ray materialized four Iratus-human hybrids right in front of the two intruders. The beam then drew back into his ship. All three dart fighters circled the area, scanning the results.

The Iratus-human hybrids looked nothing remotely human, if you counted out two legs and two arms, as well as an upright stance. They stood a full 6 and a half feet tall, with massive three-fingered limbs, huge four-jawed mandables, and bulbous faceted eyes. They stood on slightly crouched humanoid legs, clicking and growling, before spreading out to surround the elves.

[Solar Communes]

Kara continued to run tirelessly towards what she concluded to the place where events could lead to a conflict between the residents and these new, unknown arrivals. After thinking well, maybe it was unwise to send a message like that. After all, they could very well be a small pack of demons, and considering her luck, that was not a far away guess, although if they were, they were hiding their presence quite well.

"I hope I am not coming too late to do something about it, at least prove them I have nothing to do with whoever or whatever just came." She ran away, farther, farther. It never tired her, not even a drop of sweat came from her body, but it definitively was filling her with dirt. It could be only one second the difference between making new enemies or avoiding conflict. While she ran as quickly as possible, she suddenly felt the alien mind trying to speak to her again. It sent images of their ilk, distrustful, suspecting of something, wanting to be given a clearer answer from they way they behaved like confused human bugs, like those ants that sometimes were unsure on whether to move straight or take a turn to the right. Kara felt a pain from seeing, hearing it, but there was little to do but accept it.

"I wish they could understand my means of forming thoughts and messages." Kara sighed. It was already difficult to concentrate while resting, and thus to send a clear telepathic message while running was even more complicated. This time she tried to conceive an even clearer meaning while running, hoping certain more or less universal symbols would be logical enough. It was again the image of her own self in human form, but this time the image of her world was also shown, then a line of blackness splitted the image in two pieces. At the first it was her and her world, at the second it were the shadows and a world covered by shadows, unknown. Then the images panned up as another line of blackness came down from that first set, and splitted into two lines, where two visions were simultaneously shown: one where the shadows attacked the Wraith and then Kara was attacking the shadows and the other where the shadows refused to attack the Wraiths and Kara was shaking the hands with them. The image them panned up again, with two parallel lines leading to two other simultaneous visions linked with the previous ones. One where Kara shook hands with the Wraith alone, tied with the image of her helping them against the shadows, and other showing Kara moving her lips, looking at both the shadows and the Wraiths while they slowly changed their suspicious and hostile reactions to each other to more serene ones, and finally this specific line went further down to an image of Wraiths, shadows and Kara shaking hands. Hopefully despite contrived, her images would make enough sense.

When she finished it, her attention once again shifted to reality, and the sounds of the spaceplanes were louder. They were close, they were chasing the new arrivals. And most important of all, Kara could barely think about what to say as she saw what seemed to be a short elf in a grey cloak running away towards her direction. "Understand my language please!", Kara thought in a fraction of seconds before shouting:

"Hey! I can help you! Calm down! Stop please! We need to talk!" the woman in the spider silk suit hoped that would draw her attention.

[Michael Kenmore]

This time the message was perfectly clear, but still Kiele didn't like it. His speciality was following orders, following Coneer's orders on Iratus-human hybridization, and holding down this fort. The idea of a peace with people he knew nothing about sickened him and possibly slightly frightened him. Better, perhaps, to just capture them all and hand them over to the hiveship. The hive would know what to do.

*****

The darts picked up something else on their scanners. They didn't have visual, as dart fighters possessed completely opaque canopies and relied on external sensory information. But it was there notheless, and it was moving quickly towards the Iratus hybrids and the elves.

A second dart broke out of the circle formation and beamed down four more Iratus-human hybrids to intercept the newcomer.