The Beast Awakens [FT|IC|Closed]

[Allanea]

Of all aspects of the science of magic, it is demonology that is by far the most hazardous. The demonologist must, in his work, confront entities that are often malevolent and almost invariably powerful and intelligent, and capable of endless deception. Untold tragedies and disasters, ranging from the merely horrifying to the truly apocalyptic, have been visited upon the world by those who overestimated their ability to control the forces involved, or their preparedness for the challenges of the daemonic and the extraplanar. One may, then, ask, why do we study this aspect of thaumaturgy at all, would it not be better left under lock and key? The truth is that the knowledge of these forces is also the best way to confront them, to protect ourselves from their malign influence, and, where possible, even to use their powers for good. ~ Professor Ingwar Mechem, Opening Lecture, Introduction to Demonology Course.

Liberty-City, Ministry of Defense, Office of the Minister of War

The phone rang – not the cell phone, the secure-connection phone on the Minister's desk. Even in this age of starships and faster-than-light travel, few things were more secure than simply running a phone line in a shielded cable tube. It took two rings before the Minister of War picked up the receiver.

"Stossel-Conde speaking."

"Good day, Madam Minister. Maverick here. This is an international emergency."

"There is an emergency every other day. Could you be more…"

"A demon infestation. Auman. Some other places too, but the Aumanii are our allies."

"I… what is the scale?"

"Interstellar."

There was a pause. "What do the Aumanii need?"

"Not yet clear. I believe it would be ideal to send a team to investigate the details."

There was a silence as the Minister of War considered the proper response. "When will you send me the briefing?"

"Should be in your inbox already."

"Let me just open it… that is hardly good. Okay. I will talk to the DREAD people to put a scientific expedition together. And, of course, the Navy. I'd like you to tell the ambassador in Auman to tell the Aumanii that help is on its way."

New Victoria, in orbit

The ship appeared.

That was it. There was no dazzling flash of light, no visible contortion of realspace. There was only slight, barely-visible, flash, and it was simply there, at a location where it had not been before. If one had not been looking at the spot in the sky where the ship came to be, one could have been deluded into believing that it had been there for hours.

The ship was an Allanean cruiser, its hull so dark a grey it was quite nearly black. This was the FKS Xenophon. It was immense, its shape somewhat reminiscent of a spearhead, although it would be hard to imagine a spear giant enough to fit this spearhead, or a being to wield the spear. Despite its impressive size, it was smaller than full Allanean battleships. It has been chosen for this mission because of the technologies its carried – the drive that had allowed its somewhat less than theatrical entry, and, more importantly, a pair of devices that now rested deep within the ship.

Those were a pair of complex items – things, seemingly antiquated in their function for this era of quantum computing, solid-state engines and gravitics. The two devices were each taller than a man and filled with moving, rotating parts, which, when active, made an impressive noise that made one think of the machinery of the age of steam and diesel – and right now they were not active. They were too dangerous to turn up when it was not yet clear if they function would even be needed.

The Xenophon was armed with a variety of other experimental weapons – a cloaking device, hangars with the newest aerospace fighters, beam weapons, missile launchers, all manner of items like this. However, at the present moment, perhaps the most important role it played was as a transport for the men assembled in the Captain's Office.

First of them was the Captain himself. An imposing individual, Captain Arnold Steinbach had a partial REichskamphenite extraction, although he was now removed from it by several generation. A scar running down one cheek marked him as the veteran of the First Freemen's crusade – a man familiar with demon warfare.

Second was Professor Ingwar Mechem. This man was an absolute civilian. He was, however, a professional in this very sort of thing. That is to say, he was the Professor of Conjuration and Demonology from the University of Concord, and as such it was only natural that he was requested to assist with the expedition. His 'civilian' outfit for this trip was a long set of dark-brown robes, just a shade less dark than the short, yet somehow menacing beard that framed his face. His staff was leaning against the wall behind him, kept within easy reach.

Third – Colonel Inga Tarkova. Her green uniform had the badges of an Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment - an antiquated name, and in this case, referring only to the fact that her men were capable of orbital drops. Obviously, Tarkova represented here the presence of the Army's muscle – it would be these men who would actually go and fight the monsters if need be.

Fourth – but, in fact, far from least – was Subdirector Timothy N. Sumarokov. With his hands steepled, he sat on the opposite end of the table from the Captain. He wore no uniform – just a business suit with a silver bolo tie. Overlooking the people in front of him, he spoke:

"Gentlemen, ladies, we are in orbit. Colonel Tarkova, I believe your men are already prepared, but it would be wise to do a final check. Captain, I believe you should order a scan of the system. Professor Mechem, we should be prepared to start our survey as soon as we receive a situation report from our erstwhile allies."

There have been no objections.

Very soon, the Aumanii authorities received a brief message.

Greetings.

This is the testbed cruiser Xenophon. We are carrying the resources necessary to commence assisting you. Please send out a situation report, including a list of the most urgent needs and any targets you would wish us to fire upon.

[Auman]

Flagship Metis, in orbit of New Victoria

Fleet General Kendricks Tyler had moved his flag to the Metis once its peculiar capabilities had been established. The old radios, so it was learned, could listen in on enemy transmissions. They weren't using encryption as much as they were relying on not being picked up on antiquated technological devices. Interesting technique, if not wildly inefficient. The Aumanii were firing radio beams through Hermetic micro-fissures, this allowed them instantaneous communications over any distance, fully secured against eavesdropping... For the most part, anyway. Old rust buckets like the Metis which narrowly avoided the scrapyard thanks to Plan 70 had not been upgraded to the Hermetic systems yet, which meant they were running with comms that were over two hundred years old, which ran on very specific bandwidths and, as rumor seemed to hold true at this particular moment, the Skyking class of cruiser was haunted... She had a reputation for speaking to ghosts. Maybe it was a capability that ol' Sheikh Navarrone accounted for back when he first commissioned the class and that the appreciation for the paranormal, which seemed so absurd in today's modern world, had fallen out of the Aumanii Zeitgeist.

Afterall, the Founder and Prophet Zemel Caine himself had warned in his teachings that ghosts were real and tangible beings, just like demons and God himself... Something a man can feel and see and be murdered by. When Kendricks Tyler was growing up, his mother took him to a Unitarian church that never much dwelled on the scarier aspects of the faith, preferring instead to drop the martial and paranormal aspects in favor of the message of unity spread by the Founder... And his mother, God blessed her, despite her faith in the Prophet, just couldn't bring herself to believe in something so absurd.

You can pick and choose your lessons from the Articles, but you're best served to read them all, because you will never know when you're going to be pushing a headset to your ear and listening to a religious prophecy unfold.

Captain Renner was stationed next to the Fleet General, listening to the same transmissions. The men seemed to set their headphones down in unison. Tyler lit cigarettes for the both of them, a few other members of the CIC crew took that as a signal to light their own and soon the tight, darkened, confines of the pit was thick with smoke. The recyclers coughed and sputtered, but they could take the grime. Aumanii ships had strong lungs.

"The Inspector General is off to the core to seek out a vision. Vic Nu is sending out a sniffer team and I'm expecting the Allaneans any second now. High Command has labeled this an extradimensional emergence event, which complicates our lives considerably. Not only will the system be crawling with spooks and freaks, but what happened here is going to be covered up. High level understanding only. Classified above top secret. We're working on a story now, but unless someone has the right tags, this was just a terrorist attack... Anarcho-Communism strikes again." Fleet General Tyler said between drags of his cigarette.

Captain Renner nodded along. He suspected something terrible and life altering was about to happen imminently. He was right. Kendricks Tyler flipped open a jeweler's box and slid it across the commo station to Renner. They were the rank pins of a Lieutenant General of the Fleet.

"I don't want it, Ken." Said Renner, pushing the pins away.

"You don't have a choice, Jim. These came from the Overlord himself. You're in. Big jump in the grades, but it was a necessity due to the things you've seen and what we have to do next. If you want to participate in this mission, and participation is not voluntary, you'll be taking the damn pins." The Fleet General chuckled as he removed the Captain's bars and replaced them with the matte black relief of the Spirit of Man, the same symbol found on the Aumanii flag.

"You are more than just an officer in the Aumanii military. You are a symbol, you are the strength of all mankind." It was solemn enough an entry into to the elite ranks, supposed Ken Tyler.

"You could have bought me a drink before fucking me, Ken." Said Renner and both men laughed. Ken called for his aide to bring down a bottle and some glasses. They chatted and bantered for awhile. The aide eventually got down to the CIC with a very old bottle of a now defunct brand of whiskey called Jim Beam. They enjoyed a glass together until the commo operator motioned for them to pick up their headsets.

"Greetings.

This is the testbed cruiser Xenophon. We are carrying the resources necessary to commence assisting you. Please send out a situation report, including a list of the most urgent needs and any targets you would wish us to fire upon."

"Oblige them." Ken said to the commo. She worked her console and sent over the last reports to the Xenophon. They'd see that major combat action had concluded on New Victoria, but that the Metis had been sniffing out activity on a number of planets and moons in the system that would require further investigation. Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps there was an entire enemy Legion stationed here and they had no bloody idea about it.

"Open up a line to the Xenophon, please."

"You're live."

"Allanean Warship Xenophon, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the Sphere. I am Fleet General Kendricks Tyler, commander of Aumanii forces in this system. Enclosed in this burst transmission is a situation report, as well as codes that will allow you to operate effectively with our Alexzonyan allies, who are also active in this system. I look forward to our future effective relationship in this theater."

[Allanea]

Aboard the Xenophon

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have some bad news." – Captain Steinbach began. "We are late."

"What do you mean, late?" – Colonel Tarkova began – "Has New Victoria fallen?"

"No. The other way around. The system capital has fought the demons off." – the Captain replied – "The party has almost ended without us. The Alexzonyans and the Aumanii are sweeping the system from demons and cultists. I am informed the Alexzonyans have located a daemon temple on the sector capital's moon. That said," Steinbach sighed – "We are going to have to split the proverbial party."

"That is to say?" – Subdirector Sumarokov uttered.

"There is some substantial fighting on Algor. It is a snow world on the very edge of the habitable zone." – said the Captain.

"Perfect climate for a Freeman to fight in." – said Tarkova.

"Speak for yourself," – answered another voice, gruff and low. "You are going to be fighting in powered armor."

It came from a completely new participant in the conversation. It was a massive canine – even standing on all fours it was half as tall at the shoulder as a human, and seated on a chair it seemed equal in size with the humans. A moss-green vest covered the creature's torso, and as it spoke it bared metal fangs. The tag "MAJOR BARKER" on the vest and a pair of shoulderboards revealed the creature as an officer. Covered in yellowish fur, with a pair of furry, sharp ears, the creature was something between an immense dog and an oversize dingo, although of course it was neither of these – neither a dog nor a dingo can speak Common.

Major Barker continued. "That said I want to sink my teeth into some daemonkin. How soon can we begin deploying?"

"I hope to be in low orbit of Algor… well, to be clear, we can leave realspace as soon as Professor Mechem can get on his shuttle."

"I get the hint." – said Mechem. "I already have my supplies packed up. Soon as we can load them onto the shuttle, I can go. Hopefully the Alexzonzyans will be receptive to my aid.

Algor Planetary Capital

It should have been a perfect morning – the air crisp and clean, steam rising from the mouths of the city residents and their horses as they rushed back and forth on their business, the sky a greyish-blue overhead. But it was not such a morning.

The air smelled of fear. Even the Aumanii, brave as they were as a culture, felt it - the daemon hosts were drawing nearer and nearer to the city. The residents barricaded themselves into their homes, or – if they believed they could get off-planet – made way to the city starport. Those who had duties – the local militia, the police, the military – patrolled the streets, arms in hand.

And, to be fair, many of the Allanean soldiers were quite afraid too. Rumors were spread of the daemons and the monsters that accompanied them. Some said they could turn you into one of them just by speaking to you. Others – that the creatures were immune to weapons fire. Yet others – that the daemons were a hive mind, and that anything one creature saw would be revealed at once to others.

Crump, crump, crump – the armored boots of the soldiers hit upon the cobbled streets of Algor's capital, as they marched towards the edges of the city. Their armor could change color at the wearer's will – but right now it had been set to appear a bluish-grey, almost the same as the sky. As they marched to their positions in groups of fifty, city residents could see them – looking like fearsome automatons, their faces concealed under the polished faceplates of their armor, it seemed that they had no emotions of their own. The residents could rationally know, of course, that these soldiers still, like themselves,s were imperfect, that they knew fear – but for a moment, this would be lost in the military pageant – which, of course, part of Tarkova's plan. The sight of the soldiers was meant to build confidence in the allies they would protect.

Tarkova had already picked out fighting positions for them – some on the city's edge, in whatever buildings could be taken over by soldiers for the defense, some just before it, others even within the city, in the event some of the creatures breached the defense.

The soldiers were followed by whatever vehicles could be rented or loaned, or brought down from the ship. Some of those were gravtrucks and others were techspiders – polished metal creatures the size of a small car, with supplies tied to their backs, skittering forward on articulated legs. Even local horses and carriages were taken up to carry supplies – weapons, some of them, but primarily tools and construction materials for the paratroopers to reinforce their position.

As the soldiers moved through the narrow streets, they began to sing. The regimental band marched in armor as well, but helmetless, so that they could blow into their horns and trumpets as they moved. The voices carried through the crisp winter air - at first uneven and unstead, but then growing stronger and more even.

Soar, my falcons, like the eagle!
Leave your sorrows behind
Better ‘tis to camp in teeeeents
Camp in teeents in the field!

[Alexzonya]

Starfleet Command, Meridian Prime, Galactic Republic of Alexzonya
“Ma’am, we have a confirmed signature match. The target in system Beta 24 Sigma match those encountered at New Victoria, and those that attacked the Martian Conglomerate last week..”

The Sky Marshall takes a deep breath. I’m getting too old for this… “How have they reacted to the probes?”

“Extremely aggressively ma’am. They fired on the Glitterprobe as soon as they detected it and are in the process of targeting the reconnaissance assets it deployed.”

Hawthorne frowns. “Alright. Tell Admiral Delwin he is cleared to deploy his Task Group. Place Aquarius and all frontier systems on the northern front on alert.”

There’s a pause, as Hawthorne prepares to call the President.

“Ma’am, Delwin is requesting RoE for the mission.”

Hawthorne hesitates. She thinks back to the footage she had viewed last month, of New Victoria, and the more recent reports from the slaughtered MarCong at Go. Her face darkens. “Unrestricted. Assume contacts matching engagements at New Victoria and Go are hostile until proven otherwise. Get them out of neighborhood.” The watchstander nods and relays the message as Hawthorne picks up the direct like to the War Room.

“Rebecca,” says President Bailess, his voice crystal clear. “Please tell me you have good news.”

“No, sir. Contacts are of unknown origin, but they match signatures from the battles at New Victoria and the attack last week on the Go System in the Martian Conglomerate.”

Bailess curses. “Well, Rebecca… do me a favor and kick these assholes off of our lawn? After their last two appearances made such a splash, I don’t want to see a repeat in one of our territories.”

“Yes, sir. Admiral Delwin has a task group staging at Avalon now.”

“That’s the spirit, Sky Marshall. Kick some boogie ass… and keep me in the loop, of course.”

Avalon Prime, Galactic Republic of Alexzonya

On the bridge of the enormous ARS Paragon, Admiral Delwin wipes his brow as he watches the reports coming in. The hastily-assembled Task Group Onager was a massive formation: the 4th and his own 18th Fleet comprised the bulk of the ship count, but the 3rd and 5th Expeditionary Task Groups numbered 50 ships apiece, and the Exploration and Patrol Corps had also contributed 12 Exploration and Patrol Groups (6 regular, 6 heavy), each with 17 ships. Overall, 1064 were being brought to bear on the Nightborne FoB, though not all of them would be ready to jump immediately. The 18th Fleet was going to take all ready warships to be the vanguard of this action, supported by the two ETGs; the 4th Fleet HQ would follow with any ships still preparing and the EPGs.

Nyteborne Staging System, Near the GRA’s Borders
Some Time Later

638 Alexzonyan ships drop into reality in the unidentified system; a solid 2 light-minutes from the bulk of the Nyteborne forces to provide cushion, but close enough to cause alarm. The Alexzonyan ships launch their dronecraft immediately; the squadrons of unmanned gun and sensor platforms hurtle away from their motherships and form into defense and sensor screens. The Alexzonyan ships also begin volleying missiles; not immediately at the Nyteborne, but off at an angle, and at a relatively economical velocity. The Longbows could be coordinated to strike from oblique angles, or in larger swarms than the launchers could manage in one salvo, when they were staged, and it also ensured more space to accelerate to attack speed; the Longbow used an anti-matter torch, and would strike at a nontrivial c-fractional velocity if given enough lead distance.

“Admiral, hostiles are maneuvering. I think it’s safe to say they know we’re here.”
“Understood. Set formation Tango 4 and prepare to engage. Jack in.”

While the Alexzonyan crews MMI into their stations in readiness for active combat, the ships of Taskgroup Onager form into a cresant shape, with the heaviest ships concentrated in the middle of the leading edge; out to the sides, the formation splits into 3: one part even with the center, and then one each “above” and “below” the orbital plane of the system. The 3rd and 5th EPGs are positioned as units, above and below the centerline of the formation. And then a gentle blueshift begins, as the Alexzonyan forces begin a slow burn towards their foes and await the Nyteborne response.

[Nyte]

Halcon
The Interstellar Empire of Nyte
Dirty Pete's Bar

---

"The Alexzonyan attack on our staging area shouldn't have been a surprise really... And some would argue that Lucien had planned for it right from the start" Damien continued the tale somewhat sardonically... "Lucien of course never bothered answering if this was the case; well, not without anything more than a somewhat patronizing look to my knowledge at least... Personally, I think the crazy old bastard did plan for it... Just not so soon, or in the numbers it came in."

"Either way" he continued. "Come it did, and Lucien did what he did best; by which I mean he pulled a plan out of his ass and somehow managed to pull it off as well..."

Staging Area
The Interstellar Empire of Nyte
Alexzonyan Border System

---

They're a few hours earlier than I would have liked Lucien thought to himself as he studied the data pouring in on the Alexzonyan force. The numbers are about what I was expecting though. He considered for a moment the likelihood that, like him, the enemy probably had reserves; a significant number of reserves at that. He examined the data once more...

"What is the ETA on our reinforcing battlefleets" he asked; his eyes not leaving the gently glowing displays.

"A little more than a standard day" came the reply.

We could fight it out Lucien thought... I can probably run them up and down, and around this system long enough for our main group of reinforcements to arrive and then make a fight of it... Would it be worth the casualties though? Lucien grunted as he thought; shaking his head no to the thought. No... It's not worth it in the long run...we'll need something a bit more...interesting for this.

"Contact the scout fleets" he began... "I need two groups of volunteers... While you're at it, notify the approaching battlefleets and reroute them to the secondary staging area...they won't get here in time to make a difference anyway." He paused for a moment. "Activate all defensive countermeasures including the flicker fields, and start flooding the system with noise. Then pull us back towards our heavier defenses. Keep our formations loose and fluid; I want interlocking fields of supporting fire while we pull back into our defensive envelope. Frigate and destroyer groups are to focus on shooting down enemy missiles and counter-battery fire against incoming enemy ordnance. Heavier assets will focus on the enemy center as we pull back...any ship that exceeds thirty percent damage is to break off immediately and fall back through FTL to the secondary staging area."

Lucien spared a moment from giving orders to look at the holographic screens once more; their blueish light bathing his pale, aged face in their soft glow. Already, he could tell by the icons on the displays that his orders were being quickly and professionally carried out.

"Admiral, I've got replies from scout groups seventy-four and sixteen... They're...volunteering."

Looking over, Lucien replied "They're aware that their life expectancy will likely be measured in minutes... If that?"

A simple nod is the reply.

"Very well" Lucien continued. "We'll provide them telemetry and targeting data. I want them to remove the safeties from their FTL systems, spread out, and prepare to jump in on my signal."

"But that will..."

"Yes" Lucien interrupted. "Their arrival will be quite...catastrophic I expect... That's why I asked for volunteers only. The remaining scout fleets are to await my signal before jumping in as well" Lucien continued; much more quietly; more too himself than anyone else. "The timing on this will need to be perfect."

...

Over the next several hours, things began to carefully play out. The Nyteborne fleet pulled back towards their defenses while keeping the range long; picking away at incoming missiles and ordnance with their lighter ships as they pulled back. Their heavier assets focused on the enemy center; spamming missiles, gauss cannon rounds and particle beams as they went. They left a trail of destroyed and damaged ships in their wake as they went; ships damaged too quickly to make their escape, and no longer able to keep up with the slow, steady retreat to the heart of their defenses... At which point, the signal was given, and things became much more interesting.

Using telemetry and targeting data provided by the main Nyteborne fleet, a paltry pair of scout fleets jumped in and exited FTL; the seventy-fourth arriving almost in the heart of the upper Alexzonyan fleet, and the sixteenth doing the same with the lower force. Combined, they numbered less than fifty ships, and under normal circumstances, would likely have lasted a few minutes before being swatted aside, but their arrival was anything but normal. The safety systems that had been disengaged from their FTL drives nominally had a single, primary purpose; to limit the build-up of radiation and stellar particulate that built-up as the ship moved at faster than light speeds. With the safety systems engaged, this build-up was relaively minor, and would usually have discharged as a relatively short ranged bow wave from each of the ships upon reverting to sub-light speeds. Without these safeties, their arrival became catastrophically destructive with waves of radiation and particulate blasting out at nearly light speed in all directions... In a matter of seconds, those few volunteers put out more "firepower" the the entire Nyteborne fleet could put out with several volleys from their entire weapons compliments, and the damage was appropriately proportional. The fact that they pretty much annihilated themselves in the process was sad, but in Lucien's mind, considered to be acceptable losses.

Not long after; leaving their losses behind them, the Nyteborne pulled out of the system... Squadrons of ships FTLing out to fall back to a secondary location where they would rondezvous with the bulk of their reinforcements and try once again to prepare for an advance into Alexzonyan territory. They left little of their own in their wake... A handful of badly damaged ships; who's crews were more than likely preparing to repel boarders or die under ranged fire from enemy guns, a few dozen surviving static weapons platforms which would continue to fire desultory barrages of weapons fire at any Alexzonyan ship that entered their effective ranges, and drifting fields of debris from lost ships and defensive installations...

[Allanea]

New Victoria Provincial Capital

Closer, closer the daemon host drew, like a garotte growing tighter on the neck of the condemned. Through the swirling snows they advanced – ten-yard-tall, red figures with claws and wings and horns, like the daemons of children's illustrations, spiderlike cybernetic monstrosities with an exposed, giant brain seated among the metal legs and claws, floating flaming skulls that shrieked like the souls of the damned, and other abominations beyond knowledge or count.

The traitors came also – a myriad refugees, collected among the stars and infected with the daemons' influence, and worse than this, some Aumanii who fell under it too. These were far more fearsome – they retained the knowledge of their old life, and like most Aumanii these were too healthy and strong, brave and skilled with the rifle and with the enormous Aumanii fighting knives that were the sign of their culture from time immemorial.
They came closer and closer, the swirling blizzards concealing them from scouts and observers – but sometimes the grey clouds in the sky parted, and, exploiting the brief opportunity, a lance of heavenly fire would come down, vaporizing the enemies it struck. This was the FKS Xenophon, doing what it could for those on the planet below.

In the starport, civilians fleeing the battle were being loaded onto cargo ships as fast as the work could permit. Local police and starport security, wielding light-sticks, bullhorns, and at times, batons, enforced order, preventing the queues from turning into stampedes.

And in the fields, in the surburbs, in fortified homes on the city edge the Allanean soldiers and the Aumanii militia were making their last preparations to meet the enemy. They had dug their trenches and fighting positions, they prepared traps and minefields ahead of them and around they. Now they were listening.

As was Allanean tradition, before the battle Colonel Tarkova addressed her men. Her voice was carried to the headphones in every man's helmet, to loudspeakers around the positions.

When I first confronted daemonkin such as these, during the First Freemen's Crusade, at Felrune, I thought to me – is there is such wrong with the world, if there are such hidden evils – then, where is the hidden good? If there are daemons and cultists and horrors beyond knowledge, where is the good to stop them? Long I have pondered, my friends, this riddle of the hidden good. Then I knew, at last, where to find it. In truth, brothers and sisters, there are many kind entities in the world – but the true hidden good is hard to find not because it is a mystic being or some hidden kind dragon that devours the evildoer. The truth is that the hidden good is hard to find because it is behind your eyes and between your ears and within your ribcage. The hidden good is you, it is every one of us.

It is every man and woman and being that stands and declares, this far and no further.

Today, we may die, this is true. But every hour we delay the creatures means hundreds, thousands more can get onto their ships safely. That in itself is a glorious victory. But today I ask of you more than this.

I ask that you fight the enemy such, that those creatures that have now emerged from the darkness ask themselves – if this is how a handful of Allaneans and Aumanii fight us, how shall we fight their legions? When those of them who survive report to their evil overlords in the Hell that has spawned them, let them whine and wail about the cruel Allanean rifles, and the merciless steel of the Aumanii knives. Let them ask their daemon lords – 'how do you expect us to fight millions of these?'. Let their mothers, if they have any mothers, raise their tentacles in grief and sorrow as Grendel's mother wailed over his corpse.

Make ready your swords and rifles, my Beowulfs, my Glorfindel. Soon the enemy will be upon us, and soon they shall know us. Then they will regret coming here, and their hopes shall be ashes in their daemon maws.

Soon they will remember why they skulk in the darkness.

Soon they will remember why they are afraid of the light.

* * *

It would be near dawn when the daemon host ran into the first traps. Some were simple – boiling water was poured onto the snow, which melted the surface and rehardened into ice, causing those who stepped on it without warning to topple forward into funnel-shaped dugouts. Others were technological. There were bounding mines the size of a garbage can, leaping a few dozen yards in the air on a jet of flame, then detonating and showering the monsters and cultists below with dozens of tiny bomblets of different kinds, turning dozens of monsters and men into piles of burning flesh, steaming ichor and twisted metal. There were small mines, enough to wreck a man's leg up to the knee, and large mines, enough to topple a daemon monster the size of a house.

Finally, there were the worst traps of all, those laid by the infantry.

* * *

He had been laying in the snow for hours on end. Even in his powered armor, this became uncomfortable. He had been covered entirely in snow, keeping only a small space in front of his helmet free – and so, for the host that was now advancing, he was invisible. Illusions carefully weaved over him by the trench wizards confused the matter further – all of this together making it possible for ihm to lie here, quiet unnoticed, even as the waves of Dark Aumanii, refugee cultists, and daemon creatures, approached him, and drew even with him.

Peter lay with his left side to the main Allanean line, and with his rifle aimed along the line of the enemy – and now as they were here, as they were perhaps two miles from his friends, now was the time. His finger moved – gently, almost imperceptibly – against the trigger, and suddenly his rifle spat fire. It was a needle-like, coruscating-white, bolt of plasma.

It hit. Of course it hit. He had all the time in the world to line up his shot. His target was giant – a vast, bat-winged monstrosity, its skin bright-red against the New Victorian snows, towering over its henchmen. Now it shrieked hate and shock as a chunk of its daemonic flesh vaporized, throwing bone fragments and foul ichor onto the servants surrounding it. A second shot tore off its arm at the elbow, sending the chainaxe toppling to the ground. The creature fell to its knee, and the orbital trooper finished it off with a third shot.

Next to him, his friends opened fire. Arthur, from Freedom Island, Zhan, from Iolead, Gonjijuc, from Kalandia, Rufus, from New Montana, and Celerina from Kurzweil. He was proud of them all, for having joined this ambush, and for how well they did today.

The main line opened fire. For several seconds, the attackers were caught between a storm of flame that was impacting them from the front, and the Allanean ambushes – dozens like his own, for every battalion commander had set his own ambush. Plasma bolts stabbed into the attackers as needles of white-hot light. High-angle mortars rained hell from above. Sometimes - where there was opportunity – lances of sky-flame came down from the Xenophon, invisible from beyond the clouds, and yet its visible for its violence.

And yet the daemons still kept coming. They came on and on, as if they were cheating in some way, as if they had dialled in some hidden code within the multiverse that had allowed them to keep coming and coming.

And, of course, the warriors perished also.

They perished in flame and light, and they perished also like heroes.

The enemies turned upon their position, and within minutes they were upon them, darkening the snow with their flesh and devices.

Zhan was the first to perish. The creatures came upon him, skulking around their leader – a vast, metal construct, like a spider of polished stainless steel, an enormous brain-like organ riding under a globe of armored glass on the spider's thorax. This seemed to defy logic, like all of the daemon's actions. And then Zhan defied the creature. He stood up from the snow just under it. A handful of M-grenades, tied together with wire, were in Zhan's hand as he shouted something into the blizzard, its last insults to the fell beast. Then the grenades exploded, and then Marksman Zhan Ling was no more, and the creature's wrecked body settled on broken, half-melted legs, and the armorglass shattered and melted, the giant brain steaming as it boiled.

Arthur from Freedom Island perished also, and it seemed that he perished randomly, a fragment from a mortar shot piercing his neck. His armor let out one last wail of alarm as it detected his bright-red life-blood spewing from his neck, and within seconds he was dead, slumped over his support weapons. It seemed random and meaningless – until one saw the bodies of dead cultists and daemon-creatures piled on the snow in front of him, fanned out in front of the muzzle of his support gun in mute testimony explaining the logic of his death, so that an observer could map, from the pattern of bodies and burns on the snow, what part of the battlefield he had been assigned from.

The power packs for his rifle gone, Rufus had driven his force-bayonet into the body of a towering daemon creature, and it fell on him and buried him under his weight, his tiny hobbit body broken under the creature.

Gonjijuc had met the Dark Aumanii knife to knife. He had the adbvantage of his body armor, and they had numbers. His rifle broken and cast off, he unsheathed his last weapon – a power-bayonet, over a foot in length, it sliced through rifles and body armor like paper. Like the traitors that faced him, Gonjijuk was brave and killed. He cast off his helmet to let the long blue tendrils on his head flow free, and struck down his enemies with swift, sweeping motions. Where his power-bayonet struck it cut and cauterized at once, and the smell of burning flesh was all about him as he fell at last, his black eyes skywards, the blue skin radiant against the snow as the tendrils splayed out about him, his arms thrown at his sides.

Celerina's anti-tank weapon fell silent and empty. Six enormous creatures lay dead in front of her position, dark, foul-smelling steam rising from their bodies where the rockets had impacted, and around them lay the cultists, mutilated, dying or dead. And Celerina herself was also dead at the bottom of her trench her armor shattered on her side, dark blood in a frozen pool around her, curled up, another rocket for her gun still in her hands, cradled in her lap like a baby.

Peter looked at his rifle. It seemed almost useless now, its magazine all gone. Around him, his friends lay. He looked at his last weapons – two M-grenades, a power-bayonet and a shovel. Not enough, certainly, to win. Enough to follow doctrine, however. He fixed the bayonet to the rifle and powered it on, the blade glowing blue as the force-field that gave it its name came alive.

As the horrors approached his position, he threw the last two grenades across the breastwork. They exploded like tiny suns, and for the tiniest second the enemies paused. This was what doctrine expected.

Rising from his trench, bayonet fixed, Peter shouted defiance.

"HURRAAH!" – he shouted, as he drove his weapon so deep into one of the cultist's the front sight hit against the traitor's ribcage.

For seconds, he had the delusion, one that was false and yet one that he wished to believe, that his rage alone would carry him, that he would be able to keep stabbing and striking forever. He cut another cultist open, spilling the contents of the man's stomach onto the snow, and cracked another's skull with his stock, and then killed another. It seemed like this would go on forever, that the strength his rage had given him made him godlike, that he could –

And then the world spun around him, and everything was but bluish-gray sky. New Victoria was gentle to Peter as he fell back onto soft, crumbling snow. Soon she would tuck him in under this snow, as if he was one of her beloved children.

[Alexzonya]

New Victoria, Surface
"We have fucking orbital control, how the hell are we still losing?" gripes one of the Alexzonyan Marines. "Did the Aumanii and Allaneans forget their fucking rifles?"
"Shut it, you lot," snaps their Sergeant. "Focus on the mission."

Their mission, as it were, was civilian evacuations. While the Allaneans and Aumanii died to buy time, the Alexzonyan Expeditionary Forces on New Victoria, few in number, where in charge of evacuating the civilians in the face of their enemy's genocidal advance. It was infuriating; their fleet had chased the damnable foe's forces from orbit, but they continued to make headway on the ground, despite periodic bombardment from the Allanean, Aumanii, and Alexzonyan ships.

"What the Sergeant said," adds another man, an officer. "We best just hope the Aumanii and Allaneans can handle it, unless you want a taste of what they're getting."

Famous last words. His communicator cracks to life a moment later.

"Captain Oscar, come in, do you read me?" It was the Admiral himself. That wasn't a good sign.

"Allanean positions to your East have been overrun. Brace yourselves, we're about to open up, and then assume defensive positions at the spaceport perimeter. Hold until the last of the civilians at your location are clear, then evacuate yourself. New Victoria will be retaken, but we don't have the forces on hand to hold it."
"Understood Admiral. We'll give them hell down here if you'll drop some on them from up there."
"I'll debrief you Starside, Captain. Good hunting. Argent out."

The Alexzonyan Captain taps his communicator. "Alright boys, you're gonna get your wish. Allanean lines are falling apart to our East. The Admiral wants us to hold the spaceport perimeter until the evacuation is finished, and he's the kind of man who always gets what he wants. Lets get to it, and mind the falling..."
There's a boom, to their East of course, as the Alexzonyan orbital guns open up in earnest, blowing earth-shaking chunks from the terrain on which the Aumanii and Allaneans had fought and died and which the forces of corruption now held. "... rocks," he finishes. He grabs his R7 rifle, slings it, and heads for the command vehicle at a sprint. Once there, he starts indicating, one after another, where his platoons ought to deploy, and watched as his Lieutenants dispersed their squads accordingly. The expeditionary force had few vehicles, but their handful of Fencer and Blazer chassis took over behind sheds or behind bumps in the terrain, ready to light up. The mood was light, jovial... nothing could survive the fire the fleet was unleashing on the advancing demons. Or so they thought.

“Contact, 200 meters out!”

Half an hour later, the first call came in. Visibility was declining; the dust and ash from the bombardment shrouded the area. Using visuals, the Marines could see perhaps 50; with their multispectrum helmet mounts, quite a bit further.

“What is it?”
“Not sure. It’s big, probably 10 feet tall. I don’t have a good read… shit there’s two more.”
“Alright, wax them! Carefully now...”

A short volley of careful rifle fire, aimed shot from the Marines at the slowly advancing behemoths. The demons break into a run.

“Fire at will, fire at will!” calls a Sergeant into his communicator, as the creatures draw closer and more and more begin to appear on their sensors. The line erupts with a cacophony of coilgun shots, the thumping of the squad’s infantry autocannon. One, then another of the beasts goes down. The third vaults the wall, and stabs its hand through a Marine and then into a wall. He throws the corpse at the Marine’s buddy, who was emptying his rifle 5 shots at a time at point blank range, and then crushes his head with its foot-talons.

“HOLY FUCK, HOLY FUCK WHAT ARE THESE THINGS!?!?!”
“DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!”

The third monster on the wall finally collapses, under a barrage from the autocannon, but now the underlings were on them. Bat and raven-like, with screaming faces and grasping, rending talons, they died in droves, but swarmed evermore when Marines went to reload. A bright ball of pink, unearthly fires blows an IFV apart, ceasing the chatter of its autocannon.

Back in the command center, the Captain grabs his rifle and runs outside. Night had fallen, for a reason unrelated to the barrage now. He taps his communicator again.

“Fire mission, fire mission, danger close!”
“Go ahead.”
“Grid coordinates Zulu 4, Subsection 8, 9, 11. Give me bluegreen!”
“Standbye… mission approved, watch your lids.”

There’s a blinding flash a light. Any of the unfortunate civilians looking towards the walls would need to have their eyes repaired after evacuation, as the lasers on the orbiting ships began strafing the perimeter zones in the most danger, blue and green blasts of light evaporating whatever they hit as Marines ran from the blast zones, a fighting retreat as they blasted away at any demons that made it through.

“Keep it coming, keep it coming!”
“Standbye.”
There’s a pause.
“Captain Oscar, get your forces back to your transports.” It was the admiral.
“Aye, sir.”

On the transport up, less than half of the shellshocked Alexzonyan contingent were still alive to watch the Voyager’s main gun fire once, and glass the entire space port and dozens of kilometers around. Whatever these things were, fire and devastation seemed to be the only thing they wrought, or understood.

[Allanea]

New Victoria, on the outskirts of the colonial capital

The trench wizard was dying.

He had not worn powered armor, only a light skinsuit under long, camouflaged robes, so as to better perform the ritual gestures that had moved hundreds of tons of soil, snow, and ice, and reshaped plains into trenches, breastworks, and elaborate traps, to better weave the spell-webs and whisper the incantations that would remain suspended in the air until some daemon or cultist accidentally crossed an invisible line on the snow that would trigger the spells – and then the air around them would turn into flame, or they would be struck by lightning, or suddenly turned to stone, their mouth frozen in mid-scream.

Perhaps, had he worn the armor, he would have lived a few minutes longer – and perhaps not. Around his positions, the bodies of a dozen cultists and Dark Aumanii lay, some still smoldering, their clothing blackened and stuck to the remains of their skin. The man himself was lying in the snow, his limbs bent at unusual angles, his ribcage reshaped terribly, a footstep an enormous daemons having left its mark in blood on his chest. Every last breath was drawn from him with pain, the ice-cold air seeming to scrape against his throat, his broken ribs seeming to stab against his flesh.

He could not move his legs. He could not get up. He was left looking into the skies, where the storm was swirling still – the clouds dark grey still, but now swollen with an evil power. Terrible creatures would sometimes appear from the cloud cover, like a sea predator breaching, and vanish again. Their wings seemed leathery – some bright-red, like the wings of daemons in schoolbooks, and others seemingly torn and decomposed, as if they had been rotting for months before taking flight.

Judging by the height, the creatures had to be enormous – larger than an aerospace fighter, certainly. The trench wizard smiled, blood appearing on his bruised lips. Somewhere over his head – that's to say, behind him – plasma rifles barked again and again, as his retreating comrades were still fighting the daemonkin. The advantage of dying, – he thought to himself is that I am no longer involved, and don't need to be trying to figure out how many yards these assholes have from tail to snout. He coughed, and every cough was agony.

The trench wizard raised his head, with an effort, and looked about at his handiwork, at the mutlated enemy remains cast about him. Well, I have certainly done my bit here. It is time to rest. – he put his head back down on the snow. It was, of course, cold, but the trench wizard felt no cold. It seemed like the snow was soft and warm, covering him like the blanket in his childhood home. He smiled as he closed his eyes.

* * *

Tarkova's men and women were retreating. They fought in the trenches outside the city, and now they were fighting in the suburbs. It was ferocious, and it was a bloodbath – for them and their enemies. The daemons, and the Dark Aumanii who escorted them, fought with bravery and skill – and the cultists who came in among them, who had brought this plague to New Victoria from between the stars, were not very skillful, but they were tenacious and they were many.

Therefore, the Allaneans retreated – from one house to another, from one intersection to another. And all Allaneans fought.

In flashes of blue fire, Major Barker and his team appeared directly under the knees of an enormous daemon. Next to a regular human being, they would be fearsome – enormous golden retrievers with pointed ears, armored vests protecting their torsos. Next to a giant, green-skinned horned demon they looked like puppies – but this was deceptive. Major Barker's head darted upwards, his jaws closing on the daemon's thigh, and then the blink dog yanked his head back, and spat out an enormous chunk of the creatures' greenish, polluted flesh. The daemon roared in pain, and swung its weapon to where the blink dog officer had just stood – only to swing through thin air as, true to his name, Barker disappeared in another flash of blue. As if to mock the creature, another blinkdog nipped at the back of its foot, tearing out an inch-thick section of hamstring.

And then the dogs were no more there at all, having gone elsewhere, to some other fight.

* * *

Aboard the Xenophon

"Captain Steinbach, the clouds are getting thicker. We are no longer able to monitor the situation within New Victoria at all except in terms of what the paras are telling us."

"What do you mean, no longer able?" – Steinbach leaned forward in angry confusion. "We are a cutting-edge testbed warship, not a grandmother with a telescope. It' just some clouds."


"Except it's not, and probably never was. Aetherometric readings suggest that the daemonkin are using an aetheric field of some kind to conceal their movements – the clouds are a symptom, a minor symptom – not the disease itself."

"Verdammte scheisse." – said Steinbach with feeling. –"We need to solve this. What can you give me?"

"I don't think I can do much for you here, Captain. But I'll do my best."

"I see." – the Captain said. "Go. Talk to the others. Meeting in the bridge in fifteen."

"Aye aye Sir."

[Auman]

The battle raged for what felt like an eternity. Thanks to a plentiful supply of precision mortars, artillery drones and landmines, the Aumanii had kept the enemy at arms length, chewing them to pieces with their Molands and Magnetic Repeaters when they ventured too close. A constant and unyielding hail of bullets and shrapnel turned the forest into a charnel house. The Aumanii dug their positions into soft peat and mossy earth, but as the snow began to fall, blanketing the forest in a thick coat of swirling ice, communications faltered and the gunnery ceased. Without the protective curtain of shrapnel pushing back the swelling tide of inhumanity, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.

"Hansen!" Cried the Sergeant Major, who didn't waste a second of fire at the line.

"Yes, Sergeant Major!"

"Move your ass back down to the command post and re-establish contact, right bloody now!"

"Yes, Sergeant Major!" Snapped Private Hasker Hansen. He bounded up from his section of the line, snuggled under a crossing of two fallen firs, and booked it double time down a snow covered hill into a gully. The further down he loped, snow gave way to soil, mulch and bright green ferns that blew in the stiff wind like paper fans. It was at the bottom, along a gently flowing creek that Hansen found some decent footing, he could run at a full out sprint all the way to the command post from here, and so he did for a number of minutes and his mind, which was serenely emptied of complex thought by the overriding vigor of combat, was now flooding with notions. Anxiety crept into his mind, a sudden and powerful feeling that filled his gut with dread as if he had swallowed a pound of molten lead. It was awful and unlike him to worry... He'd fought under Tanner at Luston, he did fine and conquered his doubts then, so why did they pester him now?

Hansen crested a fallen log twice as tall as he was, slathered in bright purple moss, and slid down the other slide. When his feet touched the ground he sank into the soft earth and then, suddenly, he noticed that he was in a meadow. It was so peaceful here, no sound of battle disrupted this beautiful space. Wildflowers were in full bloom, lending their reds, purples, yellows and blues to the verdant glory of this pastoral wonderland. But still, the worry ate at his stomach and wouldn't relent. So while the birds were chirping and a doe nibbled long grasses near the creek where a fawn drank, Hansen was filled with an unrelenting sense of doom.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up despite the skin tight body glove of his Modular Warrior System. His scalp tingled when he saw it, stepping out into the meadow. A tall man, dressed in a black cloak stained with dirt and the grime of battle. His hair was matted. His curly beard was thick and encrusted with dry blood. They stared at one another for awhile. Hansen shouldered his Moland and the man produced a blade from his sleeve.

"Have you no honor?" The stranger called out, "Show me your blade, Shocktrooper, as I have shown you mine!"

Hansen understood now, who this man could be. A so called Dark Aumanii, men of his own blood, soldiers like him, who had abandoned their duty and betrayed the Sphere. He found it hard to believe the reports when he first heard them. But here he was on the field of New Victoria, being challenged to a duel in the custom of his people by a man so far fallen from grace that it pained him.

The cloak was that of the 55th Hunter Brigade. This man was Colonel Unger, a legend. Hansen could shoot him dead right now, but it wasn't possible... The shame would destroy him as surely as the Colonel's blade. It was on his honor that Hansen tossed aside his Moland and drew Tolst, the fighting knife forged by all Aumanii soldiers upon graduation from the warfighter academy, the final test of their worth as a warrior... To cast from metal the symbolic personification of their spirit. Each blade was different, customized by the soldier themself for their liking, but all shared a stark white tassel that danced in the act of killing. The fear that gripped him ebbed, withdrawing like the tide as he gripped the handle of his sleek, triangular, knife.

"That's a nice knife, kid." Unger said, hefting his own broad cleaver, clearly meant for chopping. Unger's Tolst was practical, utilitarian, designed more as a woodman's tool than as a proper weapon.

"Ornamental, but aesthetic. It will please me to add it to my collection." Unger opened the folds of his cloak and removed a satchel that, when he tossed it to the ground, spilled open. Knives, presumably taken from other Aumanii soldiers that he killed, slid out. The sense of doom returned to Hansen, but he has little time to think about it.

Unger bolted towards Hansen, crossing the meadow in an instant. Hansen ducked under a cleaving chop and Unger drove his blade deep into the mossy wood of the great fallen log. Hansen lashed out and kicked Unger in the spine, causing him to lurch toward him, unarmed. Hansen was seized by his wrists and Unger drove a knee into him.

I have to keep control of my knife! was the only thought in Hansen's mind as he struggled with the Dark Aumanii, who screamed in his face like an animal and searched the treetops with lolling, unseeing, eyes.

"Give it to me now, boy! I will draw out the pain a hundred times for every second you make me wait!"

Hansen elected to headbutt him repeatedly. Every strike distorting Unger's features, reducing his face into a pulpy mess... Hansen, of course, was still wearing his helmet, an armored full face covering.

Unger's grip was strong as death and try as he may, Hansen couldn't break free. So, he decided to give up his Tolst, blade first... He stopped resisting, insteading angling the tip of the knife toward Unger's heart and letting the man pull it into his chest.

He gasped and blood flecked Hansen's faceplate. Unger's eyes opened wide and fixed with the Aumanii private.

"I am closer now to the Founder than you ever will be." Unger said before he died.

[Alexzonya]

Aftermath: Part I
The Paragon, thankfully for Alexzonyan morale, was still intact despite taking the brunt of the damage from an enemy kamikaze. Contra usual, the Super Battleship had taken the bulk of the blow for her escorts; in other sections of the fleet, the smaller vessels had not been so fortunate. 50 Nyteborne ships had claimed, approximately, their equal number from the Alexzonyan ranks disabled (many beyond repair) or destroyed. While the Paragon wasn’t among those, her damage control teams were still hard at work, and the formation flag had transferred to her sister, the 4th Fleet’s Magellan.

More importantly for the Nyteborne, however, the suicide strike caught the Alexzonyans entirely off guard and thrown the fleet into brief disarray, preventing an immediately pursuit of the withdrawing foe. By the time order had been restored and the formation adjusted with wider intervals and further FTLi-active picket frigates, the enemy was gone, leaving only the few static defenses and a handful of disabled but intact vessels.

Orders to those survivors to surrender were immediately met with expletives and occasionally porographic replies, as best the Alexzonyans could translate, and so the smallest of the surviving vessels was promptly obliterated… and then they asked the others again. This hadn’t seemed to change the enemies’ minds, so fleet intelligence got to work identifying which two of the damaged enemy vessels was most intact and drawing up, in consultation with their Marines, preliminary plans for a boarding operation. The other disabled ships were promptly destroyed

Unfortunately, the boarding action was quickly cancelled, and the two surviving ships (after one final chance to come quietly) were dispatched. Starfleet Command wanted the bulk of Task Group Onager to recall back to Avalon; two of the Patrol Groups would remain, to salvage the wreckage and dispatch any surviving static defenses that had been missed in the initial sweep, but the main line forces were to resupply, begin repairs, and retain heightened readiness until it was known whether this was the only such immediate threat.

Homeland: Part II
Meanwhile, back in Alexzonya, preparations were already underway. On the frontier world of Greenfield, the closest the fighting, Ssgt. Madeline O’Hara was in the process of reading to her 5 year old when her communicator chimed, and she jumped nearly off the bed as her Civil Defense alert sound plays briefly but incessantly. By the time she had soothed him and gotten him to wait, it had sounded twice more. She picked up the communicator, but she already knew what it said. A flashing, stylized GRA Civil Defense logo had taken over the screen, with “MOBILIZATION” in a stark, gray text. She swipes in.

“By order of Starfleet Command, Civil Defense Surface and Interstellar Forces at Greenfield are to be fully activated. This is not a drill. Proceed immediately to your assigned staging area. If you are unable to proceed to your assigned station, contact your chain of command for further orders." With shaking hands, she swipes to the voicecall function, and presses her spouse’s picture. Someone was going to need to watch the kids.

[Allanea]

New Victoria, in the suburbs of the colonial capital

Lieutenant Devin Byers came to. He was still alive, but his helmet was gone somewhere. Try as he might, he had no memory of how he ended up in the snow, his back resting against a streetlight. He tasted blood, and breathing sent stabs of pain through the left side of his body. He scrambled to his feet, even as his body fought him.

He found his helmet. It was in the snow next to him, several menacing bends and cracks running along its side. It seemed like the helmet latch had failed and the sensors were out. Devin tossed the helmet back into the snow and turned his attention to the people around him.

It looked bleak. Of the battery's six mortars, one was toppled sadly on its side, and another seemed gone altogether. Bodies – men and monsters alike – lay in the snow around the firing position. A soldier ran up to him. "Lieutenant Byers! Lieutenant! Are you okay?"

"Yes. Yes". – he coughed, blood coming up on his armored glove. "Where is the Captain?"

"Dead, Sir. They took Lieutenant Hospers, Sir. Are you sure you are –"

"What do you mean." – Byers coughed again, every cough racking his throat and ribs – "Took him?"

"One of the creatures, Sir. Grabbed him and flew off, Sir, nothing we could do to the frakking winged twatwaffle, Sir."

"This… puts me in command of the battery."

"We don't have a battery, Sir."

"What?"

"We lost gun 2B and 2C, Sir. Gun 1B doesn't fire for some dumb reason. We've lost crews and –"

""I get it. I get it. Tell the men to get everything they can from these guns. I'm in command now." - Devin Byers raised his field binocuras, and looked towards the fields beyond the city. He could see the daemon armies now. They were flooding the Allanean trench lines, tearing through the city defenses like a runner through a ribbon at the end of a finishing line. He did the math mentally – normatives, speeds of advance, formulas – and spoke.

"If nobody slows them down, they'll be on us within about twenty minutes. Get the men ready. Go!"

As the soldiers gathered to their mortars, he looked out on them, hissing as he sucked in the ice-cold air through his teeth.

"Men."- it did not come out loud enough, and he tried again. His throat was sore, and filling his lungs with air hurt. This is probably what Mom feels like when she's teaching on a sore throat, he thought, and then tried again, louder this time.

"Battery B! Enemy infantry and constructs in the open! Fire at will!"

The three mortars barked, and the men and women of Mortar Company B got to work again. They hefted shells from crate to loader to gunner to the open gaping lips of the mortar, like men in a village fire in the pre-spaceflight age hefted buckets of water from hand to hand to aid a neighbor. The mortars fired, and fired, and fired.

One thing they were not going to run low on was ammunition. Their fallen comrades lay about them, and half the guns of their company were silent, but those who lived had more than a double ration of mortar shells. All the gunners needed to do was reach to their friends, and those would place a shell in their hands, and they would place the shell in the mortar, and again they would be enveloped in a storm of smoke and snow.

The mortar rounds came down whistling, amidst the cultists and the Dark Aumanii, among the daemonkin that crawled ever closer to the city. Some of the shells were special – homing anti-tank, or submunitions dispensers, that would suddenly swoop down on a mining combine the cultists had brought into battle, or consume a platoon's worth of enemies in a blizzard of tiny explosions. Most, however, were just regular mortar bombs – explosives and shrapnel, the same as mortars had fired for centuries, only the metal of the hulls was better and the explosives stronger than generations ago.

Thump – and a handful of cultists stopped, some stunned by the blast, others laying, battered and bloody, on the snow.

Thump – and a raging mass of ectoplasm and pus was torn and mixed into the snowy mud, its pseudo-pods thrown to the skies, it's cry – Tekeli! – suddenly stopping, its anguished notes seeming to echo in the air even as its aeons-long journey of revenge and defiance had already come to an end.

Yet Byers saw through this, saw through the mirages of victory. He knew that the daemonkin invasion had torn through the perimeters in several sectors. He knew that with every minute, they would be closing the distance to his mortar positions.

Devin Byers knew also that there was no further order he could give to his men that mattered. They would shoot their guns into the mass that bore down on them, until either they died, or morale gave out. There would not be any tactics involved. Only mortar shells, moving from one set of hands to another, like buckets in a village fire.

He saw one of the mortarmen die. There would not be any dramatic movement, no cry of defeat – the man merely fell down, like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut. The men who were working the same mortar bent over him, pulling the heavy shell out of his hands.

He allowed himself to slump, his back resting against the light pole, and began to sing. His voice was weak, but he kept tune, and – at least he hoped – the sensors in his men's helmets would filter out the battle noises enough to let them hear at least some of the words.

Artillery crewmen, we have our King's command!
Artillery cremwen, the Motherland calls to us!

He continued singing as the daemon host closed the distance, minute after minute, mile after mile. He took a break to help the men of Mortar… was it 2C? 2B? Did the numbers change once the two platoons merged? What were the rules for this? He helped them heave a shell into the gun, and then he passed out.

He came to minutes later, to see an advance guard of daemons and Dark Aumanii burst into their position. He lay on his back as he fired his plaspistol at some kind of tentacle creature. Tears ran and froze on his cheeks as Byers shot again and again into a mass of flailing tentacles, and at last the creature moved no longer. Yards away, he saw someone who had once been an Aumanii cut through two of his men – as in, literally cut through them with an immense blade, leaving severed limbs and broken bodies on the sand as the Dark Aumanii advanced. He put two plasbolts in the traitor's chest.

Then the fight was over. The enemy vanguard had been repelled, the bodies of cultists and monsters strewn about the snow But now they had two mortar crews. He picked up the song from where he remembered stopping.

For everything that we hold dear
For our children's every tear,
For our Motherland – give fire, give fire!

He was singing still as he stepped over a dying crewman and threw a shell into the gun's muzzle.

He took a pause to reorient the mortar when the enemy drew close enough for them to fire their guns directly, as if they were in the age of horse and pike.

He picked up another song, the one about the artillery scouts and gunners, and then the one about the tank crews standing in long lines, and then about the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Blood came up when he coughed, and he was not certain if anyone besides himself could hear him singing.

He was still singing when the daemonkin swamped their position at last, and he and his gunner tied explosives to the last mortar and set the fuze.

Something – a tentacle? A claw ? – swept under his legs, and he fell backwards into the snow. He considered getting up, but he was so tired and so cold, and his legs felt so strangely warm.

His lips were still moving for a few seconds, his song now only a barely visible cloud of mist over his face, and then at last he sang no more.

[Auman]

Unger lay on the ground, steam pouring from his lips in a constant stream as his body crumbled and blew away like sand in the wind. The blood on his knife quickly oxidized and rusted the blade completely. As the last of Unger caught on the breeze, Hasker Hansen could hear his name rattling in the depths of the forest.

A shell burst in the tree tops, sending fragments down towards him like deadly missiles, impaling in the squishy soil around him. Hasker was having difficulty understanding precisely what it was that he witnessed and hardly flinched as the rain of detritus and debris destroyed the wood around him. Miraculously, he was unscathed. Following a long, rattling, burst of repeater fire, Hansen remembered his mission. He could feel his motivation returning to him, like the Sergeant Major had grabbed him by the collar and was dragging him along, Hansen broke into a trot and continued to the command post.

Down the creek, the water trickled clear until, almost at once, he found that it had turned to blood. He followed the trail of the stream with his eyes, curving and twisting between mossy banks towards the outline of the command post, which had been cleverly hidden and was only now just visible to a trained observer. Hansen broke into a run and was challenged at a magnetic repeater position by his fellow soldiers. He passed along his acknowledgement.

"I need to see the officer in charge. It's important." Hasker's voice was tingling with adrenaline. One of the soldiers jerked a thumb towards a mass of ferns and dirt. He strolled over to it and found a slit door cut into the dirt and shimmied through into the smoke filled mound. The officer in charge had his back to him, he was reading a tablet. Hansen stomped into attention and waited patiently to be acknowledged.

This lasted a very long time. The officer in charge, a colonel by his pins, stood there... Motionless. It took another moment yet for Hansen to realize that there was no one else in there with him.

It was dead silent.

"Sir?" Hansen said, finally.

The Colonel's head twitched off to the left with a crack of the vertebrae. Hansen straightened up as a feeling of dread and terror commingled in his gut.

Pop

His head turned one hundred and eight degrees. The Colonel's beard was thick, curly and matted with blood.

"Unger!" Hansen gasped, scrambling to peel the Moland from his shoulder. He leveled it and fired a full burst into the man's back.

The room went dark and then flashed with a light so intense that Hansen felt like throwing up. A cacophony roar filled his ears and he screamed, drowned out, pleading for it to stop. A force like a freight train collided with Hansen and he was pinned to the ground.

"MEDIC! GET A MEDIC IN HERE NOW!"

Where did all these people come from?

A boot crashed into his face and the world went dark.

"He just walked in with this blank look on his face... And he shot Colonel Haverick."

[Alexzonya]

Command: Part III
“Four pieces of news: Good, Better, Bad, and Worse. What order do you want them in?”

President Bailess considers. “I don’t care, just tell me,” he says, finally.

“The good news is that we’ve completed an analysis of probable enemy strength. My intelligence folks have been sifting through refugee reporting and volume information, timeframes, spread… and we think we can estimate that they have between 5,000 and 10,000 ships deployed and causing this mess, assuming that the bulk of their forces are comparable to the ships seen at New Victoria.”

“This is good news?”

“It means, first of all, that we’re not disastrously overmatched. And those ships are spread across Gamma. While that force we repelled was only a small fraction of their strength, it doesn’t appear that they’ll be able to mass effectively, at least not without stopping their cleansing operations elsewhere. And distributed forces gives us more of a chance to win victories even if we can’t bring as many ships to bear overall. The size of the quadrant works in our favor, for once.”

“I almost believe you. What’s next?”

“The better news. We know who they are and where they come from.”

“That one is better! Give me the whole thing.”

“Eridani intelligence, but don’t say it too loudly. They took a shipload of silver and a promise to keep the source protected, and in exchange… we know the identity of these bastards. The Interstellar Empire of Nyte. And we know where they come from; North Gamma, rimward, right on the Delta border. About 50 billion sapiants, so they have more people, but only just. GDP numbers are hard to crunch, but our analysts think we have a slight edge.”

“Empire of Nyte… isn’t that subtle,” muses Bailess.

“You think they know they’re the bad guys from the skulls on their uniforms, or do you think they’re still pretending?”

“Who cares? We know who they are now.” Bailess looks relieved for the first time since the Nyteborne War has so rapidly escalated.

“... still two pieces of news, sorry to burst your bubble.”

“It’s never all sunlight and rainbows with Starfleet, is it?” he quips. “Alright, Rebecca, what’s the bad news?”

“I’ve talked to the Auxiliary, and they’re going to have to sit this one out. Their forces are already more than overloaded dealing with the Welded. Even with us supporting them there, pulling NEGL forces away to reinforce the Deltaward frontier will give the Welded a chance to breakthrough. The GRA is in this one on our own, except for our base advantages which, admittedly, should be considerable.”

“That’s manageable. What’s the worse news?”
“... we are on our own.”

“You already said that.”

“Nothing from Excaliber. The Aumanii seem content to chase demons or what have you along the Gamma rim, the Tezekians are already losing ground to the Welded. The Domain are keeping a low profile with the Welded incursions ongoing, trying to stay out of the limelight. The Dornalians and Fenvarians are already providing ample technical and logistical support on the Welded front and will do so here, but… in summary, I have been told not to expect direct relief from SATMA forces on this front, beyond what actions the Aumanii are already taking of their own accord.”

“... well then. We’ll have to do this carefully. Recommendations?”

“More roving patrols along the northern frontier. Our sensor coverage is good locally, but our efforts to expand the network have stalled; at the least, we need bubbles in and around the other NEGL systems. I recommend approximately 4000 ships be shifted, preliminarily, to counter this new threat; it’s a sizeable percentage of our forces, and not enough to obtain full parity in the theater, but it should suffice for containment and will leave reserves to deter the Huerdaen and the Olimpiadans. The NEGL systems are well-fortified and equipped because of the logistics push; that puts us in excellent position in terms of forward basing. I’d suggest we take advantage of it.”

“You’re the Sky Marshall, Rebecca. If that’s what we need…”

“One more thing, sir.”

“Oh?”

“Personnel. The National Service missed its targets for my Marines and frontline elements again. That’s almost 6 months in a row. We can’t afford an ongoing shortfall like this, not in wartime, and especially not right now.”

Bailess ponders. “We’ve pushed the term factors to their limits. If people aren’t enlisting now, it’s because they’re not going to, no matter how long we drag out their alternatives.”

“Unless we eliminate the alternates.”

There’s a long, silent pause.

“... the voters will have my head.”

“Not if you wrap it as part of the war declaration. You can call it temporary, if that will help. Take advantage of the rally ‘round the flag effect.”

“It may as well be a draft.”

“That was going to be my second suggestion, if you turned this one down.”

Bailess looked like he had swallowed something distinctly unpleasant. Finally, the Sky Marshall adds, “You have a girl in the fleet, sir. It makes it more dangerous for everyone if they’re undermanned.”

“I damned well know that! The voters…”

“... do you lead this country or not? The Welded are knocking on our door and we were days from disaster if that Nyteborne strike group had gotten through our sensors net. How do you explain half a billion dead Alexzonyans to the voters?”

Another pause. He glares at her. “You’re getting contentious in your old age, you know that?”

“Am I wrong?”

“You’re not wrong. But we’re even worse off if we get routed in the next election by one of those Progress Party lunatics. You handle the Starfleet, and leave the voters to me… and I’ll get you your personnel. Fair enough?”

“That’s all I wanted, sir.”

“Good. Implement your plans, Sky Marshall. I’ll draft a speech… we have a war to declare, after all.”

[Allanea]

Free Kingdom of Allanea, Liberty-City, Temple of the Illustrious Ancestors

The steps under his feet were white marble and grey metal. The steps themselves had been a sort of memorial – each piece of metal had been forged from enemy weapons, or from the thousands of dog-tags of enemy troops. They had been intended, by the architects, to be dark-grey, but had been polished to a near-silver sheen by the thousands of feet making their way up the steps day and night. The sheer magnitude of death these steps implied boggled the mind. Under his feet were belt buckles from thousands of Antanjylian slave overseers, Chronosian swords from the First Freemen's crusade, a fragment from the hull of a Martilian cruiser – all of these melted and pressed to make the metal inlays he walked on.

The entrance of the Temple greeted him with an array of dark bronze columns, each forged into a different symbolic figure – the Soldier, the Scientist, the Doctor, holding up the Temple's entrance. They both humbled and inspired those who entered. They reminded each visitor that the Illustrious Ancestors were great, and they reminded them that each could achieve the same greatness.

Even he found the scene inspiring.

In bright ermine cloak, his crown a modest circlet on his bow, the King of Allanea walked through the Temple of the Illustrious Ancestors.

It was half-temple and half-museum, and even those who did not believe the Ancestors were truly present among the living after dead could walk through its halls. Everywhere one could see displays of artefacts from ancient history, paintings and sculptures portraying the Illustrious Ancestors, and their glorious deeds. White-clad men and women seemed to glide through the halls, their robes sweeping the reflective floor under them. These were both priests and attendants at once, here engaged in the one sacred task of preserving the Ancestors' memory.

Not all of the Ancestors' were literally the ancestors of Allaneans – indeed, not all of them were even human. Those who worshipped here did not feel that this fact made the beings portrayed here unworthy of worship. They felt that the kinship of sapients was greater than flesh or bone.

The King agreed. As he walked through the halls, he saw the statues of ancient beings far beyond the comprehension of mortals. Those were aeons old, their shapes less like that of a human body, and more like a barrel with tendrils at its top, vast wings projecting from its side. It was said that those creatures lived before the written memory of mankind, and that they battled the monsters of the forbidden darkness. Few remained now, and yet what remained of their memory was preserved here.

Then there were humans and elves and more – here a bronze statue of a scientist in a pleated shirt, holding up a stalk of wheat in upraised hand, and over there an astronaut with a half-opened helmet, and here an elf minstrel, harp in hand.

But yet, quite obviously, the Temple's main purpose was military. As the King walked on, there were more and more warriors figures – bronze-age warriors with daggers at the ready to slay a tyrant, musket-armed farmers and militiamen, soldiers from the age of diesel and gun with bolt-action rifles and submachineguns. The walls were decorated with paintings and inscribed with quotations, and slowly one could begin to see displays from the age of Allanea itself – Freemen's Crusades and local actions, aerial battles and urban wars.

At last, the Hall of Mourning.

At its center, the figure of a woman – a mother, leaning over two bodies. The bodies were a young man and a woman, in what looked like battle gear, their limbs laying on the marble in final repose. Though the sculpture was marble, it seemed that she was nearly alive, that the suffering in her expression was real, that in any second the visitor would hear her wail. And behind her – the wall, covered in writing, writing that continuously moved and shifted.

It would be names. Thousands of names at any moment, millions over time as the screen cycled.

He stopped.

It would be improper to kneel. Freemen never kneel. Protocol permitted him to go down on one knee, and this was considered non-humiliating – but yet something stopped him, the fear perhaps that it might be considered by others to be too showy, a purely-ritualistic display of grief.

If they chose to think so, let them.

He went down, feeling the dark, polished stone press painfully on his knee.

He thought then of these people. For some those were the Illustrious Ancestors. He remembered many of them. He sent many of them to what he knew would end up their last fights, their last missions. He felt no guilt. He knew that he had acted as justly as any could expect. That these men had volunteered for this fate – none were draftees. And yet despite all of this, he felt the compulsion to be here, to pay his respects to these millions who had sacrificed themselves, willingly, to keep the light gleaming at the top of the hill, to keep the light spreading.

For soon – soon, he knew, there would be many names added to that wall.

* * *

Friends. Freemen.

I speak to you now.

For months, now, we have observed the news from around the galaxy with concern, some of us with dread…

The tone of the King's voice, many knew what the news would be about. The memory of Pandora's War was still fresh. Many had watched with worry the events through the galaxy, the news of daemonic hosts consuming entire worlds. They knew that this might come.

…I have long said that the world is full of darkness, and yet that we must have no fear because the light is stronger than the darkness. Reach but for a switch in your kitchen in the night, and the shadows are repelled. And because Allaneans are strong, and we are brave, and free, we are the light. We are not a rampart, which defends, and keeps out evil. But we are a light – we go forth, and the darkness flees before us. Therefore, we must go.

In naval bases, the alarm rang. Men leaped out of their beds, boots clanked against ramps, gravitic engines came alive. In army bases, hangar doors slid often.

Nor shall we go alone. I am King of Allanea, and I am also Emperor of Greater Prussia. I have conferred with the Inspector-General, and I have authorized the full deployment of the Imperial Navy to assist our allies. Part of it shall be assigned immediately to Aumanii command, while other elements will operate jointly with Allanean, Menelmacari, or other allied forces.

In naval bases on Mercury, Greater Prussian sailors in black-and-grey uniforms ran down steel-paneled corridors towards cruiser docks.

The speech continued. Most would not remember its entire text. Only the last words would be remembered.

No doubt many of you are afraid. I understand that. Tonight we are reminded again that there are monsters lurking beyond the edge of our reality, their tentacles and claws and pincers reaching for us as we rest. And one may believe now that the monsters are stronger than men, and that the darkness shall one day flow over us and reign eternal. Yet that is a lie. That is a thought-weapon, with which the ancient evil seeks to bind us and weaken us, lest we strike it down in our angers.

As you go now – as you bid farewell to loved ones and friends and remain home – let me not try and inspire you with my own words. Let me remind you what those who had pushed back against the ancient evils said in past time.

Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva!

[Nyte]

Halcon
The Interstellar Empire of Nyte
Dirty Pete's Bar

---

"The old man faced a lot of flak for ordering a retreat from the staging area for the Alexzonyan front" Damien remarked. "There were a lot of powerful people back home that tried to get him replaced... Most of them weren't above using some pretty questionable methods to do so either... They all failed in the end though."

Taking another sip from his glass of Amasec, Damien continued.

"'Sides, the crazy bastard had a plan, and several thousand mostly fresh reinforcement ships pouring in from the MarCong front, which had basically disintegrated on the part of the MarCongers by this point that gave him the resources he needed to pull it off."

Damien's drinking companion made an inquisitive noise and arched an eyebrow in response; too busy taking a large swig from his own glass to comment.

Secondary Staging Area
The Interstellar Empire of Nyte
Somewhere Near The Alexzonyan Border

---

"I see" the Emperor's holographic form replied; it's eyes boring into Lucien's own across the otherwise dark room. "And this 'plan' of yours? You're sure of it?"

"I am" Lucien replied calmly as he returned the Emperors gaze with an expressionless look on his face. "The situation was unfavorable at the time, and making a fight of it would have been costly... Too costly for the possible benefit. Now that I have the numbers that I need on hand, the situation is markedly improved."

The Emperor's holographic form simply stared in silence waiting for Lucien to continue.

"We have an incomplete understanding of our enemy and their motivations" Lucien continued. "We have only a rudimentary knowledge of the fringes of their territory, and only the loosest estimates of their actual military strength. My plan will allow us to correct these discrepancies...all while keeping them at bay long enough to finish our preparations here unmolested."

"Besides" he continued... "This early 'win' on their part will actually work in our favor as well. Likely, they'll come to underestimate our capabilities...at least at first."

There was silence for a time as The Emperor's gaze seemed distant despite his continued staring at Lucien.

"Very well Lucien..." He finally replied. "See to it" he finished as the hologram flickered out of existence.

Secondary Staging Area
The Interstellar Empire of Nyte
Somewhere Near The Alexzonyan Border

---

The plan, in essence, was a simple one. The newly arrived reinforcements were broken up into over a dozen smaller; though still significant strike groups and sent into Alexzonyan territory with several goals in mind. First, they would aid in mapping out Alexzonyan territory in better detail; seeking out and finding important infrastructure, inhabited systems, and the like. While doing this, they would launch rapid strikes against any targets of opportunity as well as enemy supply lines...all while refusing prolonged engagements. There would be no real pattern to the attacks or their timing, and the forces involved would do so on a rotating basis; allowing for continued resupply and repair while keeping their crews relatively fresh and with high morale.

While this was an important early part of Lucien's overall plan, it was also intended to be a massive distraction; though a legitimately dangerous one, that was designed to keep the Alexzonyans busy while the Nyteborne established a heavily fortified FOB in the area from which to continue to prosecute their campaign against the Alexzonyans even further.

[Allanea]

FKS Xenophon, the skies of New Victoria

The ship was falling.

It was as if the forces that had been holding it in geostationary orbit had failed suddenly, and nothing was now keeping it from simply plunging towards the surface, like a knife that a fisherman had dropped across the side of his boat. Its dark, rhomboid shape was now sinking through the heavens, like the knife dropping through the muddy water, clouds swirling around it like silt as it fell. The arcane energies that caused the heavens to swirl, that had made it impossible to spy on the movements on the daemonkin and lay down precision fire, could not stop the fall of a mighty ship.

Nor did its crew wish to be stopped.

The air around the hull whistled and screamed, forced out of the way by the enormous weight of armor plates and reactors as the Xenophon fell and fell through the stratosphere, through the troposphere, through the cloud cover. The pressure wave from its fall shattered windows. Its arrival was like its own climate event.

And then it was no longer falling. Far below, thousands who had imagined already that death was imminent, that they would be crushed by the town-sized arrowhead, breathed a sigh of relief as the fall turned to glide. And then the sighs of relief turned to cries of triumph.

The warship was not falling.

It was diving.

Turrets along its dorsal armor plates came alive with fire and anger. Designed for void-warfare, intended to intercept enemy missiles at thousands of miles away or to engage enemy warships, here, at a distance of mere miles from the surface, the Xenophon was like a shooter pressing the barrel of his pistol against a target.

In the air, horrifying monstyers, not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor decomposed human beings, screamed in regret and terror as beam weapons and plasma projectors tore them apart, their flesh burning as they plummeted from the skies. Floating, sponge-like horrors, covered in poisonous spikes, used to boarding defenseless craft and devouring their crews, shrieked in suffering as they were sliced apart with laser beams.

On the ground, the carnage was both horrifying and inspiring at once. Shapeless beings that had waited aeons to avenge their fate on an unsuspecting universe, wailed and wept as orbit-to-ground bombs rained down upon them. Cultists who had betrayed humankind for their unpronounceable gods crawled on the ground, what little sanity they had retained blasted from their mind with the roar of explosions, blood flowing freely from their ears.

Every crewman on the Allanean voidcraft that could contribute in some way to the sudden slaughter, did so. The ship's gravity fields flexed, sucking in aerial monstrosities that dared challenge the Xenophon, their tentacles ripped free or their bag-like bodies squashed, vitae spraying down from the skies with obscene squelching noises – but compared to the creatures' having exited at all, those sounds were like a song of beauty.

Daemonkin raised their eyes skywards in impotent anger as ship-to-ship cannon were brought to bear on them at impossibly close range. Daemonic flesh, snow, and permafrost boiled at once as the radiant-white glow of plasma strikes impacted. Missiles came down from the skies and seeded the enemy ranks with bomblets.

Like a school of fish following a shark, smallcraft followed behind the vast hulk of the Xenophon. As it moved out of the way, the skies above the capital were clear again, and one could see the fighters and gunships trailing behind the Xenophon in the greyish-blue.

The starship sped low, criminally low above the ground, kicking up gale-strength wind as it passed. In its bridge, the pilot hooted and cheered, the weapons officers laughed at the destruction that it left behind. In its wake, the smallcraft rode like hunters behind their leader, striking at any creature that dared yet lift gun, claw, or tentacle against New Victoria.

And behind that, the remaining Allaneans – of whom there were few now, but the ship's prize crew had landed and joined with them, and alongside them were any brave Aumanii that wished to join – fell upon the foe, shooting with their rifles, sinking bayonets into three-lobed, faceted eyes. Then the Freemen burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible was heard in the city.

[Auman]

AuBSD Leviathan, Tcharkha System, Galactic Core.

Tcharka was a desolate system, completely devoid of life and host to a pair of dim stars which were being visibly devoured by the super massive black hole at its center. So it would seem, all objects within it were drawn in orbit of this anomaly, pulled by the overwhelming attraction of its gravity. Even the twin stars of Tcharkha swirled around it. To be this close to a black hole of this size came with a number of dangers, the most imposing of which was the loss of time.

Time moved much slower here, and the closer one traveled to the maw of the galaxy, the more time would be lost. The Leviathan was blessed, not being required to enter particularly deeply into the system, staying well outside the envelope of the black hole, here minutes merely passed as hours to the rest of the galaxy. Their objective was the Basalt Fortress, one of many that had been cataloged in the Milky Way, but unique in its disposition.

While all things moved inexorably towards the black hole of Tcharkha, and have been measured as doing so for centuries with many objects lost to its embrace... The Basalt Fortress has not moved an inch. Its position was locked and it kept its station regardless of the pull of gravity or even the movement of the galaxy around it. Aumanii scientific teams, which were stationed aboard the fortress had surmised that it was built as a marker for the true center of the galaxy.

"This is an interesting feature." Fleet General Karl Estereicher pointed out on a holographic projection of the Basalt Fortress. Joe, Captain Folsom and Vanessa Myers were standing around the charting table of the ship's Strategic Command Center.

"Why is that, Fleet General?" Joe asked, scratching the stubble on his chin. It had been several days transit and Joe preferred not to shave on these voyages, the sensation under artificial gravity displeased him. He hadn't grown used to it like Anthony Folsom, who had spent much of his adult life aboard ships.

"As you can see, the entire fortress is in the shape of a pentagonal star, with each of its long stone points tapering off into fine points, according to the record." Estereicher played with the keys on the table and two projections now appeared.

"This new image is our latest feedback from the fortress. It would seem it has come down with a case of acne." The Fleet General laughed at his own joke, but he right. The new report from the surface scans of the fortress showed a number of new dome shaped protrusions, with one blunting each point of the star. "Intelligence believes these are habitat structures. Before you ask, we had no plans of constructing anything of the sort. Such activities were forbidden by the Overlord and the garrison would not have allowed this to happen under any circumstance."

Folsom chewed the inside of his cheek, considering the data, before asking the obvious question "So, we are entering a potentially hostile situation?"

"Yes, we are unable to make contact with the garrison even accounting for time lag. We have made no positive sightings of our own vessels and we have reason to suspect there may be an enemy fleet hiding behind the station. These new structures were most likely constructed by an unknown enemy force." Estereicher brought up a grainy three dimensional image, "This is an engine cluster belonging to a Guardian class battleship. This is an intriguing development as we believed the last one was destroyed at the Battle of Jenovah, a thousand years ago. It's not much to go by, just some funnels protruding put from behind the Basalt Fortress, but if it is what it appears to be... Then we have an active piece of High Vascilian technology in this system. I cannot understate the danger this poses to our ship."

One of Joe's guards lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, snapping the lid of his zippo shut with a loud clack.

"Robyn," asked Joe over his shoulder, "Do you have anything to say about this?"

Robyn, the guard, was leaned up against the bulkhead with his foot planted against the wall. He smoked quietly and considered the image.

"This feels almost prophetic, don't it Joe? We all read about this when we were kids. Return of the Overlords... The Great Coming Back! The breaking of many seals..." Robyn pushed himself from the wall and joined the others.

Joe turned to Fleet General Estereicher and said "Robyn Strand is the son of a pastor. His mother and father were notable for beginning the Hulksford Evangelical Ranger program. By all rights, a cult, no debating that... Robyn was orphaned when the Frontier Police raided their compound. His friends and family shot themselves rather than be taken. Parents murdered their own children, but for some reason, Robyn was spared. His unique education on the matter of end times prophecy is why I added him to this retinue."

Estereicher simply nodded. The less he knew about these people the better. The Fleet General was happy playing Taxi man, so long as his passengers absurdities didn't put his ship at unreasonable risk. Unfortunately, Joe's clearance came from the top. Overlord Samoth Uyghur had given complete strategic control to the Inspector-General.

"In the end of the beginning will come unto the galaxy an age of incredible strife. In that time, the Overlords shall return to the land of the material struggle and lend their leadership to those of the faithful, and those that they had deemed worthy. To guide them and to prepare for The Great Coming Back, when the Founder shall walk amongst man again..." Joe was droning on in a borrowed voice, one that belonged to Robyn's father.

"He, the one that is Founder, shall return and never pass from this realm until heat death claims the universe. Though this is to be an incredible boon to the Aumanii people and those whom they have judged good, so to shall this time portent the returning of a great evil." Continued Robyn.

"How much faith can you really place in these prophecies?" Asked Folsom. As an Alexzonyan, he had no reason to hold these beliefs as anything more than superstition.

"Well, the Articles of Foundation are full of prophecies, kid and they're batting one hundred." Shot back Estereicher. Folsom took the Fleet General as a pragmatic man, so his word lent weight to the mysticism, just a little.

"We don't follow the Articles of Foundation out of blind faith, Anthony," added Vanessa Myers, "we do it because the articles are literal, objective, verifiable facts. There has never been an instance in which something stated by the Founder had not come to pass. The problem for us is determining the order of events accurately and acting appropriately when the time comes."

"So it's a magical document that tells the future?"

"Yes." Came the resounding reply from everyone in the room.

"Alright then."