Access Violation (IC/Closed)

[Imperium Sidhicum]

---INCOMING TRANSMISSION---

TIMESTAMP: 1540ZJUL192630

SOURCE VERIFIED. STATUS: AUTHENTIC

DECRYPTING... DECRYPTION COMPLETE.

MESSAGE FOLLOWS

Ave Imperator!

First and foremost, allow me to congratulate you on your promotion, Commander. Your talents in service of the Imperium have proven most commendable, this reward being long overdue. I take that you like your new command. She is a most capable ship, outfitted with the latest that the Imperium has to offer, and it is regrettable that circumstances force me to deploy such a fine vessel, with a commander as capable as you, on a mission like this. But take it not to your heart, and strengthen your resolve with faith that service to the Imperium is it's own reward. I wish you best of luck on your current assignment, Commander!

MESSAGE ENDS

---END OF TRANSMISSION---

---

"Easy for you to say, Admiral..." commander Martellus Radec grumbled after reading the message. The Admiral indeed seemed to have a sense of black humor.

It wasn't like Hammer of Thor was a bad ship by any standards, that much Admiral was right. 5200 metres long, with a 20-million-ton displacement, the sleek Imperious-class strike cruiser indeed was a lucrative command to any Imperial Navy officer of Radec's rank. Typically for strike cruisers, Hammer of Thor carried less armor than usual for ships of her size, but packed enough firepower to rival even older battleships. Furthermore, atypically for a vessel of her size, she was outfitted with a stealth suite and could easily approach the enemy well within range of it's defenses without it ever knowing, striking when it was all too late for the enemy to react. Such a vessel clearly belonged on the front lines, not on patrol duty thousands of light-years from where the real action was.

The official reason for this assignment to patrolling the outer systems was testing. Hammer of Thor was a brand-new ship, barely a year out of the shipyard, the Navy brass wanting to make sure all her systems ran smoothly over an extended time before putting her where her guns would really matter. Radec, however, knew better than that - this assignment was a personal revenge, a humiliation for depriving the admiral of claiming all credit for that victory at Salthrax. Consequently, he and his crew of 1200 were now doomed to six months of boredom in the outer systems while the rest of the 27th Battlefleet would kick arse and make names in the embattled Western Expanse.

To add injury to insult, Radec was assigned to patrol the outer systems rather than the Frontier. There was at least that certain unknown risk factor in the Frontier - living on the edge of uncharted space, you never knew what alien horrors would lurk in the star system just next to yours, and you never knew what would emerge from a jump whenever the ship's sensors picked up a jump signature. It could be just another Freelancer cargo ship carrying legal goods along with ones of questionable legality, it could be a pirate scout looking for suitable prey in the form of a lone merchant ship or a defenseless colony, or it could be the vanguard scout of a full-scale alien invasion fleet. Living and serving in the Frontier had an inherent risk to it, however minimal. Outer systems, on the other hand, were mostly second and third-rate industrial and agricultural worlds, too developed and civilized for the liking of Freelancers, too well-garrisoned and too deep inside the Imperium for pirates and alien raiders, but just enough underdeveloped to lack any entertainment or diversion for a spoiled core-worlder audience that the majority of the ship's crew was.

Radec sighed and left his rather spacious and luxurious quarters for the daily walk around the ship. If anything, Sidhae would spare no expense to make their ships spacious and comfortable, somewhat contradicting to their usual spartan ways. Spacers who spent many months or even years on end sailing the void in the Emperor's name did, in their eyes, deserve at least some degree of comfort.

Covering the vast interior of the cathedral-like starship was no easy task on foot, so Radec resorted to internal transportation system, mag-propelled cabins travelling through a web of lanes and shafts throughout the ship.

His first stop was the engine room, a vast maze of hallways and rooms surrounding the eight massive sub-light engines that provided enough thrust to shift a small moon out of orbit, and could accelerate the massive ship to a sizable fraction of the speed of light, given time. Perhaps the most important part of the engine room, however, was the colossal star drive, whose core of capacitor banks occupied a sizable part of the ship's interior. Dozens of technicians and hundreds of drones tended day and night to ensure it remained in perfect working order, replacing the burned-out capacitors after every jump and recycling them into new ones in the ship's workshops.

"Nothing new to report, sir!" the Chief Mechanic would report, "We have almost replaced all capacitors burned out after the last jump, the star drive is operational at 100%."

"Carry on, Chief!" Radec instructed. One good thing about star drives was that their capacitor banks were too large to fail instantly. Consisting of millions of capacitors, some of which always burned out after a jump, the drive core's performance simply progressively deteriorated without constant repair, but it certainly could last more than a dozen jumps without any maintenance before that deterioration became an issue.

Radec's next stop was the fighter bays. Every Imperial capital ship carried it's own sizable contingent of aerospace fighters and bombers. Radec himself was formerly a fighter ace, before career advancement eventually took him out of the fighter cockpit and into a capital ship's bridge, and so had a particular affinity for pilots. This was reflected in the mutual informality that he and his pilots shared.

As the commander approached, the pilots sitting around and playing cards while technicians tended to their fighters were not quick to jump to attention.

"Hey, skipper!" one of them, the squadron commander, said, lazily standing up, "Another glorious day of doing nothing while the grease monkeys spit-shine our birds, eh?"

"Another glorious day indeed... So, what's the situation here?" Radec agreed.

"As you see, skipper! Everything's the same way it was yesterday, and the day before, and the day and week before. Our birds are in perfect order, every single part of them polished to shine by hand. The drone bays are fully stocked, ready for any emergency."

"Good to know. Good luck with your game!" Radec acknowledged.

Afterwards, he would visit the Chief Gunner, whose only report-worthy news were the replacement of some bearings and gaskets in turrets 7 and 12. These housed the massive particle cannons that formed the mainstay of any Sidh warship's firepower. Capable of burning through planetary crust at maximum power, these were intimidating weapons by any standard, all the more considering how this particular model was normally mounted on battleships rather than cruisers.

After visiting a few other stations of lesser importance, Radec eventually arrived on the bridge.

---

The Hammer of Thor's bridge wasn't much different from that of any other Imperial warship. A large hall with huge windows that would be concealed under metres-thick armored shutters during combat, a giant holojector in the center, at the foot of the throne-like commander's control chair, workstations along the walls, and Imperial banners and patriotic imagery everywhere. There was little visible instrumentation anywhere, something that non-Sidh observers would find strange - most of it was projected digitally straight into the operators' minds when they interfaced with their workstations.

"Attention! Commander on the deck!" Aurelius Crassus, the ship's XO, bellowed. Everyone snapped to attention as Radec entered the bridge.

"As you were," he dismissed them, "So, what's the news today, friend?"

"Same as usual," Crassus grinned snidely, "The men are getting restless from nothing to do. Had to put a couple marines in the brig this morning after a fight broke out in the mess over a spilled cup of coffee. Other than that, nothing new."

"I see. I guess we'll have to spice up the day with some drills. The fighter jocks down in the flight deck could also use some live target practice," Radec said, assuming his seat on the control chair. As he leaned back, nano-wires snaked out of the armrests and headrest, piercing into his flesh and connecting with the neural interface ports subtly concealed underneath the skin. At this moment, commander and ship effectively became one.

"Good morning, men, this is the commander speaking!" Radec spoke, his voice eerily flanged and sounding somewhat robotic on the ship's loudspeakers, a feature implemented to signify when the commander was physically interfaced with the ship, "Hull integrity breached in sectors 12A and 15C, prepare for immediate lockdown! This is a drill!"

The ship's alarms started to whine, and Radec leaned back in his chair, partly shutting his eyes and feeling the crew scurry around the ship - at the moment, Hammer of Thor was an extension of his body. Radec would feel every vibration of the engines, the motion of every moving part, hear every whine of protest about stupid drills as the men rushed to suit up and assume their action stations. Interfacing with such large vehicles was a feeling beyond what words could describe.

"Incoming message, commander!" the comms officer suddenly announced.

"Patch it through!" Radec ordered.

The holo-display in the center of the room lit up, revealing a chart of Scatach system, the one they were currently in. Six planets, two of them inhabited, Scatach Prime being a secondary industrial world. The display would zero in on coordinates in the outer fringe of the system.

"ANOMALY DETECTED! AVAILABLE FORCES APPROACH AND INVESTIGATE!" a message flashed under the image.

"What's the source?" Radec inquired.

"It's one of the deep-space surveillance buoys," the comms officer replied. These automated buoys were deployed in the fringes of any Imperial star system to scan for potential enemy incursions and killer asteroids on collision course beyond the range of planet-based sensors.

"What's the call?" Crassus turned to him.

"Set course to the provided coordinates at sub-light and proceed with the drill. It's probably just a glitch in the buoy anyway."

"Aye! Setting course to provided coordinates at sub-light," the helmsman reported, "ETA 7 hours." Radec could feel the ship turn and the engines increase thrust.

Six more months of nothing but doing drills and fixing the occasional malfunctioning buoy, he thought. This was really going to be one hell of an assignment...

[Blakullar]

Approximately thirty seconds earlier...
Unchartered space, dimension unknown.

The silence of the void was soon interrupted by the emergence of a great, purple cloud that would have dazzled any organism looking upon it from a distance of several miles. The cloud soon grew into a mighty storm, stretching out to a grand distance, only the planet below and its moons above bearing witness to this blazing magenta hurricane. Before long, a massive, dart-like object began to emerge from the eye of the storm, travelling at a relative speed of at least five hundred metres per second.

The MSS Vladimir Lenin, the very first of a new class of dreadnought, was arriving in a new dimension. An hour prior, the Lenin had launched from an orbital shipyard at Lunagrad back home, destined for the home dimension of the PTFS to provide orbital bombardment support for a Mecharussian battalion that had landed at Banyuwangi a week ago. Utilising an onboard portal generator, the first of its kind, the eight kilometre-long behemoth was ready to engage hostile forces with its mighty suite of fortress-busting weaponry.

But it was not meant to be.

On the bridge of the Lenin, the captain, Brigadier Vasiliy Sokolov, picked up the communicator from his chair. "Engineering, provide status report."
The message that came back was crisp. "All systems are optimal, sir. Weapon systems are functioning at max capacity, as are countermeasures and engine propulsion. Portal generator has begun its reset cycle, and..." There was a pause of about ten seconds, as if the engineer on the other end of the communicator was investigating something.
"Engineering, are you there?"
"...Sir," the engineer responded, now sounding concerned. "The dimension labelled 'DFMC' isn't on the portal generator's database."
"Wait a second, what?" Sokolov sprouted a worried expression, hidden from the rest of the crew by his face mask and goggles. "Didn't you check it before takeoff?"
"It should have all checked out, sir. We're trying to come up with a diagnostic now."
"Brigadier, is everything alright?" the ship's second-in-command, Colonel Visarion Tokarev, enquired. Unlike Sokolov, Tokarev wasn't wearing a face mask. He was a young-looking character, but that seemed to be more to do with his facial augmentations than actual biological age.
"Everything's fine, Colonel," Sokolov replied, before turning back to his communicator. "What do you mean, should have? You mean you didn't double-check it?"
"We left the AI to it, sir. It reported that everything was fine. We've come up with a diagnostic after going through the generator's debug system. The most recent error message was 'dimensiontravel.op caused an access violation'."
"It ran out of memory?"
"No, sir. It didn't find the dimension, so it dialled a random code in and now we're here."
"Then where the hell is 'here'?"
"We ... don't actually know, sir."

Attesting to the fact that they were now stuck in a different dimension was a quick glance out of the window. The planet that the Lenin was orbiting did not even remotely resemble Earth. It did, fortunately, seem to be a terra-type world.
"Alright, new strategy," Sokolov said after a brief hiatus. "We wait a day for the reset cycle to finish and then we return home. Then we can get this mess sorted out."

Unfortunately for the Lenin, the shape looming over the horizon (that the Lenin's RADAR systems hadn't detected yet) illustrated that the wait was not going to be uneventful...

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Aboard Hammer of Thor
Bridge

"Sir, DRADIS is picking up a jump signature!" the sensors officer alerted commander Radec. The holo-display affirmed it, a jump signature marker appearing where the anomaly had been detected.

"Do we have any arrivals scheduled in the system today?" Radec inquired.

"Negative. We are currently the only ship officially stationed in this system," Crassus reported after quickly consulting his tacticom.

"New contact, identity unknown!", sensors officer reported, "Preliminary scans suggest a battleship-size vessel!"

"Scan and identify!" Radec ordered.

Some 10 seconds passed in tense silence due to the time lag the scanner beams took to travel the vast distances of space to the target and back.

"Unable to identify! The hull layout does not match any ship in the register!"

"Set course to intercept and attempt to hail!"

Radec was doing his best to avoid any potential incidents that could further compromise his career. This system was much too far from the frontlines for an enemy ship, much less something the size of a battleship, to sneak by undetected. Pretty much every star system between here and the Federation border had at least a few automated listening posts orbiting it, scanning the void for potential intruders and automatically alerting the nearest naval task force if any were detected. Radec knew the Order of Judicators used "black ships", vessels of classified design not listed on official registers, and were in the habit of arriving unannounced on their clandestine businesses. However, he immediately dismissed this new contact as a Judicatorial vessel - the Order's minions would, by nature of their trade, always exercise utmost discretion, entering a star system in the outer fringes, well beyond sensor range of any potential defenses or surveillance, and approaching their target under conventional engine power with stealth engaged. This ship, however, had been about as subtle with it's arrival as a brontox in a china shop, lighting up Hammer of Thor's DRADIS like a nova.

In any case, Radec to see what he was dealing with first - firing upon any Imperial ship, much less a Judicatorial vessel, would in the very least result in his demotion, and would likely be much worse than that. Sidh society and especially the military had a rather low tolerance for failure.

"Hailing frequency open!" comms officer announced.

"Unidentified vessel, you have entered Imperial space without prior notification! Identify yourself immediately!" Radec transmitted.

Seconds passed. No response. Radec repeated the message, with the same lack of result.

"Unidentified vessel, you stand in open violation of the Spacing Law Article 305.17! Power down your engines immediately and prepare to be boarded!"

Radec wasn't sure why he was referencing Imperial laws, which would obviously not be binding to an enemy, if this ship indeed belong to one. Perhaps he was still hoping it would turn out to be a Judicatorial ship, the incident ending in "never having happened", staff present on the bridge being sworn to secrecy about this encounter.

No response came.

"Shouldn't we alert the crew?" Crassus inquired.

"Affirmative. Call battle stations and approach the ship to firing range, assume hostility but do not engage. We should first identify it properly," Radec ordered.

"Aye, sir!" Crassus affirmed and switched to ship's comm system on his tacticom.

"This is the XO speaking! All personnel, battle stations! This is not a drill, I say again, this is NOT a drill!"

The alarm klaxons began to whine and warning lights flash throughout the ship, the crew springing to life and rushing to their posts. Down in the flight deck, pilots would assume their seats and wait for launch orders, drone controllers would power up the hundreds of drones waiting in their bays. The massive turrets lining the ship's hull that housed the multi-gigawatt particle cannons would power up. Men in the torpedo rooms would rush to load their deadly charges in torpedo tubes. Point-defense turret gunners would assume their control stations deep in the armored bowels of the ship. Marines would rush to the armory to gear up and report to the boarding pods. Broadside gunners would tend to the mighty broadside guns that would wreak havoc upon enemy ships at close range. Damage control crews, already suited up from the interrupted damage control drill, would only have to ready their tools and materials for real repairs. Armored shutters would lower over any exposed illuminators, including the bridge.

As the shutter completely sealed with a loud clang, the bridge was temporarily plunged into darkness only illuminated by the holo-displays of various workstations. Then, a digital image of the space outside would appear again inside the thick ferroglass illuminators that contained invisible imaging circuits, serving as high-resolution screens for the cameras outside on the hull.

"All stations reporting status ready!" Crassus informed.

"Roger that. Maintain an intercept course! What's the status on our bogey?" Radec said.

"Whatever it is, it's definitely not one of ours! Spectrometry suggests a somewhat antiquated design, the alloys in armor plating being long since phased out of use, by our own forces and also by Federation and Skargh navies," sensors officer reported, "It seems to be designed exclusively to withstand kinetic impacts, it's ablative or reflective properties being inadequate against modern energy weapons. Repeated scans also seem to suggest it has no receivers suitable for tightbeam communication, which is why they might not be responding to our hails!"

"Try broadcasting on radio frequencies!" Radec ordered.

"Aye... Sir, they are turning from their course!" sensors officer shouted before the comm technician could switch on the ships radio transmitters, rarely used by the Navy these days for their ease of jamming and interception. Ground forces still relied on radios for most part - while a tightbeam communicator could only be effectively jammed by physically placing something in the beam's path, it's biggest drawback was the need for a clear and direct line of sight, something not problematic in space, but rather impractical on planetary surface.

"I think they are turning to engage, sir! Recommend immediate defensive action!" Crassus nervously exclaimed, "Those mass accelerators on that ship sure don't look like made just for blasting asteroids out of the way!"

Great, Radec thought. Of all ship commanders patrolling the outer systems, it had to be him to run in these humans, or aliens, or whatever they were. It's not like Radec didn't appreciate the action, but even he had serious reservations about facing a battleship of entirely unknown capabilities with a strike cruiser, no matter how new and up-gunned.

Either way, it was too late to run now, and Radec wasn't the kind of man who'd willingly back out of a fight either - it wouldn't look good on reports, not for someone of his reputation. Good thing the Admiral had wanted this ship thoroughly tested before deployment to the front - now he would get more than he bargained for.

[Blakullar]

The bridge of the MSS Vladimir Lenin.
Unchartered space, dimension unknown.

Sokolov slumped in his chair, awaiting with no eagerness for something to happen. All the time he was fully expecting the ship to be blown to smithereens by some sort of ground-based alien defensive weapon. It very quickly got to the stage where he simply could not wait any longer for a surprise.
"RADAR operator, send out a ping. We need to see what's out there..."
"Yes, sir. Active RADAR scan is in progress."

Some time passed, with Sokolov getting steadily more nervous as the scan took its course.
"Active ping is coming back now ... whoa, what the heck?! CAPTAIN! RADAR scan is reporting a massive unidentified contact directly behind us!"
Sokolov's eyes widened with panic behind his goggles. "What's its bearing?"
"It seems to be headed right for us, sir! They're firing radiation of an unknown composition at us! I think they're trying to hail us, sir!"
"Well, I don't intend to take any chances, not when lives are at risk!" With that, Sokolov picked up the communicator. "Gunnery personnel, AEP-2* is now active! Repeat, AEP-2 is now active! All other personnel are to prepare for possible combat!"

And with that, the wheels were in motion. The gunners rushed to their weapon computers from their bunks, ready to program the ATAC-SBMs and ion cannons to open fire upon the approaching warship, and the anti-missile laser grid to destroy incoming self-propelled projectiles. As they did so, one of the Lenin's two nuclear pulse engines began to fire, rapidly turning the behemoth leftwards to face its opponent at a ninety-degree angle. One of the powerful ion cannons, designed to crush the armour of a Frenkish Isaac Asimov-class battlecarrier back home, let loose a bright blue shot, the gun aimed so that the projectile would narrowly miss the incoming UFO. This was intended to be a warning shot, but that may not necessarily have been clear to the opposing crew. It was a dangerous move, especially against a possibly vastly-superior alien war machine, but it was better than waiting to be blown to a million pieces by whatever fearsome weaponry that it possessed.

*Aerofleet Engagement Protocol #2.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Aboard Hammer of Thor
Bridge

As the brilliant bolt of plasma fire streaked across the ship's bow, narrowly missing the gilded Aquila figurehead, it became evident the opposing vessel wasn't here on friendly purpose.

"Deploy defense drones, hard down and engage ECM and stealth!" Radec bellowed. This was just getting better and better by the moment. Radec was regarded as an atypically humane and restrained commander, by Sidh standards, at least - while he had no problem with consigning a million innocents to the flames of orbital bombardment if that was required of him, neither did he make a habit of shooting first and asking questions later like so many others in the Navy did. Even now he was more concerned with preserving the lives of his men rather than unleashing the full fury of Hammer of Thor's armaments upon the enemy.

Radec was also being cautious, first wanting to ascertain the enemy ship's capabilities somewhat. It was clear it's defenses were much cruder than those of his ship, if not necessarily less effective. As the opponent had just announced, it carried some form of plasma weaponry among other things, and judging by the intense gamma emissions from it's aft, was propelled by some form of direct nuclear propulsion, fusion rockets or something like that.

Several thousands of drones popped out of their bays and sped towards the bow of the Sidh ship, aligning themselves in a tight multi-layered rectangular formation to form a screen against enemy fire while Hammer of Thor entered stealth mode. Each drone was little more than a cubic 3-by-3-meter block of composite ship armor fitted with thrusters and an ECM suite. It's armored bulk meant it could absorb a single impact by most anti-ship weapons, or at least diminish and deflect their power enough for the next layer of drones to intercept completely. While the gaps between individual drones were tens of metres wide, their ECM packages made the drone screen appear like a monolith wall of solid metal - technically, even a single drone could simulate the electronic emissions of a battleship, but a swarm of drones acting in unison could indeed actually impersonate a warship, especially if operating beyond visual range.

The enemy seemed to take the drone deployment as an attack, the large ship opening up with everything it had just as Hammer of Thor vanished from visual sight and detection by most common sensor types, obscured by the drone screen. The Sidh ship dove under the screen just as the enemy was busy furiously blasting away at the formation of drones.

"Stealth mode engaged fully!" tech officer reported.

"Set course to within 20 clicks to the enemy ship's port, make a hard 90, and prepare to deliver a full broadside on my mark! Comm, contact Sector Command and request immediate reinforcements, use secure quantum link only!" Radec ordered.

The cloaked Sidh ship sailed silently and invisibly almost directly underneath the enemy while it was busy unloading it's ordnance on the fake target presented by the drone screen. Although it was far enough for details to be difficult to discern, the alien vessel did remind Radec of some of the old pre-Age of War battleships he knew from history classes.

By now the enemy apparently realized their mistake, having rarefied the drone screen enough to detect that their original target was no longer there, as was signified by their ceasing fire and frantic radar pings on the centimetric wave spectrum, which led Radec to deduce the opponent was using outdated radar technology rather than the current LIDAR or neutral particle beam scan. If that was the case, that explained why the aliens fired first, perhaps mistaking the Sidh communication attempt by laser tightbeam for target painting - laser designators of all sizes were a centuries-old technology still used on ships as well as other vehicles, so it was no surprise that the xenos were at least familiar with the concept.

"Ship is in position, main turrets and starboard batteries locked, ready to fire on your mark!" Crassus reported.

"Order the attack drones and fighters to launch as soon as broadside is delivered! I want as many close-up records of their hull, systems and defenses as possible before we shoot this damn thing out of the sky!" Radec commanded. Crassus relayed orders to the combat aerospace group waiting down on the flight deck. Indeed, if this ship turned out to belong to some unknown alien race, the more intel of it's capabilities was gathered for the pending investigation, the better. Perhaps something good could come out of all this after all - the discovery of a new alien species, or an unknown faction of the known ones, was a very rare occurrence, and one making such a discovery could expect to be generously rewarded by Imperial authorities. For Radec, it would likely mean a promotion and a transfer to a better command away from that asshole Admiral, one with more opportunity of career advancement. Which would no doubt be easy and plentiful, given his newfound fame. Perhaps he could even eclipse that upstart Hanno Malkar, who made his name by discovering a new human faction, starting an adventurous campaign against it in the best traditions of the conquistadors of old, and very nearly lost his legion in the end - and yet, instead of punishment or even a formal reprimand, he received a promotion to archistrategos that would guarantee his political career for decades to come. Surely, Radec would put such opportunity to much better use than that Malkar.

"Fire full broadside on three... two... one... mark!" Radec commanded, now seized by an enthusiasm to make this seemingly punitive assignment into a turning point of his career.

The disrupted cloaking field faltered and dispersed, sparkling and arching with residual discharge as the void of space was pierced by brilliant-purple particle beams and a barrage of blue plasma bolts.

[Blakullar]

The bridge of the MSS Vladimir Lenin.
Unchartered space, dimension unknown.

"Sir, they are preparing to attack!" the RADAR operator called as the drone screen began to emerge. "Gunnery crew are awaiting orders!"
Sokolov did not intend to waste more time as this now obviously-hostile war machine (or, at least, what they believed to be the enemy ship) took action. "All batteries, open fire on the enemy vessel! Repeat, fire at will!"

All of the port-side ion cannons opened fire, and two ATAC-SBM anti-ship missiles emerged from top-mounted silos, destined for the drone screen. This time, all of the weapons were fully intended to slam into the enemy and hopefully obliterate it with sheer firepower. However, as the energy artillery continued to pierce the void, it was rapidly becoming clear that the 'ship' was either impenetrable or had disappeared from that spot entirely.
"Captain, our weapons are not doing any damage to the hostile vessel, and a scan indicates that the hull is completely flat..."
"Shit," was Sokolov's first response. "It's a damn ruse! ALL PERSONNEL, PREPARE FOR PROJECTILE IMPACT!"

As if in confirmation, a fusillade of energy fire came seemingly from nowhere. The broadside slammed into the Lenin's hull, rocking the hull with a firestorm of explosions and tearing holes into the underside. Breached rooms and corridors were rapidly sealed off from the rest of the warship by the damage-control AI, but not fast enough to stop several crewmen, many of them engineers, from being sucked out of the wounds, their screams of terror muffled by the void as they were crushed to death by decompression.

"Damage report!" Sokolov called after the first barrage.
"Sir, our RADAR system's been badly damaged", Tokarev said as the report came in. "Barracks 2 has been completely wiped out, both anti-surface railcannons are out of commission, and 29 crewmen are dead."
"Do we have a bead on where that barrage came from?"
"Affirmative. It came from somewhere below us. Approximate current bearing of the enemy ship is three-thirty-six degrees X, twenty-one Z."
"Gunnery crew, target position three-thirty-six X, twenty-one Z, and open fire with the front battery!"

It wasn't even clear if the enemy vessel was even still there, but with basically no method of non-visual detection, it was their best chance. The firing from the Lenin resumed again, with more cyan ion bolts headed in what was perceived to be the location of the attacking alien ship. The Lenin's vast inferiority to the vessel, however, was rapidly becoming obvious, and another barrage of that magnitude would seriously cripple it, if not break it in half.

Meanwhile, in the home dimension...
Gatchina Command Centre, Velikiy Sunikagrad, the Mechanocracy of Russia.

"What do you mean you lost a dreadnought?"
The voice of Aerofleet Supreme Commander, Grand Marshal Arkhip Abdulov, rasped across the war room, his anger very evident to the five adjutants at the table.
"That's what we're still trying to work out, sir," one of the nervous-sounding adjutants replied. "As far as we know, it just disappeared."
"Eight-kilometre-long warships do not just disappear!" Abdulov growled. "Is there any clue as to where the Lenin might be?"
"No, sir," the adjutant said. "If it was a portal malfunction, the AI should have kicked in and teleported it elsewhere. As far as we know, it could be literally anywhere."
"Dammit all!" Abdulov raged, smacking the synthwood desk with a loud crack. Raising his hand revealed a small, fist-shaped crater in the desk. "Do you have any idea what this is going to do to our prestige, more so our funding?! What happens if an alien force gets a hold of that portal generator? What happens if we're faced with a pissed-off armada of heat ray-toting fighting machines?!"
"Sir, maybe there's an off-chance that the ship is still out there..."
"Then you had better start looking for it, adjutant. You have a day to produce results, otherwise you and the other idiots who organised this operation are going to lose more than just their jobs! This is a matter of national security now. All of you are dismissed."

As the adjutants were about to get out of their seats and leave, Abdulov spoke again. "I almost forgot: none of this leaves this room. If the Senate discovers this epic bungle, we're all going to lose our heads regardless of the outcome of this episode! Now get the hell out of here."

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Aboard Hammer of Thor

Radec looked on with satisfaction as his broadside hit the opponent to full effect, ravaging it's unshielded hull, jets of flame, debris and molten metal erupting like volcanic lava from the massive glowing holes punched by the barrage.

As the first wave of fighters and attack drones began to launch, the aliens finally managed to line up some of their guns with Hammer of Thor and returned fire. Although no doubt powerful, the alien counterattack had little effect, however, besides sending blue-greenish ripples across the normally-invisible energy bubble surrounding the Sidh ship and having the lights and holo-screens flicker.

"Shields at 60%!" tech officer reported, "Should I redirect non-critical power to shields, sir?"

"Negative, we can take another one easily! Have the CAG disable the ship's turrets, sensors and engines, tell the marines to prepare for boarding action!" Radec ordered.

"Sir, I recommend belaying the last order! We have no idea of the aliens' personal combat capabilities, and their ship is considerably larger. We may be risking our entire marine contingent with this!" Crassus protested.

"Noted! Tell the marines to prepare nonetheless, first wave will deploy automated recon platforms only! If our enemies are confirmed to be organic, deploy scarab swarms ahead of the boarding parties!" Radec agreed.

The scarab swarms that commander Radec was referring to were perhaps the most dreaded type of drone in Sidh arsenal. Consisting of a swarm of tiny robotic beetles roughly the same size and form as real scarab beetles, but each outfitted with a pair of diamond-edged jaws sharper than a razor, these drones were rightly dreaded by the enemies of the Imperium, a swarm capable of stripping the flesh off a man's bones in a matter of seconds and, given enough time, chewing through just about anything softer than cermet armor. Too small, fast and numerous to be taken out by most conventional weapons, a swarm of scarab drones could only effectively be knocked out by a powerful EMP or blast of high-temperature flame in a confined space, where they could not avoid the heat. To have such swarms unleashed in one's ship spelled a terrifying fate to it's crew, and the traditional enemies of the Imperium had adjusted their ship designs to counter the scarab threat, installing EMP coils and automated flamethrower turrets in hallways, ventilation ducts and chokepoints throughout the ship. These aliens, however, most probably weren't familiar with the vicious little machines.

But for now, boarding of any kind had to wait until the battleship's turrets were neutralized.

---

In the meantime, Sidh fighters and their accompanying attack drones were descending upon the alien warship like a swarm of locusts. The drones fired unguided rockets and fairly low-powered particle beams, meant to be more of a nuisance than inflict actual damage, but their numbers more than made up for it, tearing a hole here or there where the armor was thinnest. Granted, the alien point-defense systems were working to their best, using missiles and somewhat crude but effective laser CIWS to strike the swarming drones, and every here and there a crippled drone, spiralling out of control after sustaining terminal damage, enacted it's self-destruct protocol and steered itself into the nearest weak spot on the enemy hull, it's kinetic energy, remaining ammunition and fuel turning the drone itself into an improvised missile.

The manned fighters were keeping behind in the meantime, targeting the main turrets, engines and whatever else looked like a critical system. Each Sidh fighter had several smaller drones flying in close by, powered by invisible microwave beams supplied by each fighter's main power core. These drones would fire at incoming missiles and debris, occasionally throwing themselves in their path and protecting the valuable craft with their sacrifice.

The alien ship apparently either didn't have any fighters, or it's inhabitants were simply too afraid to launch them into the swarm of robotic and Sidh-piloted death that awaited them outside.

Admittedly, the aliens building this ship had done a good job armoring their vessel and it's subsystems, strafing runs with Gauss cannons and particle beams having little effect for the most part. Torpedoes, however, would not face the same problem, punching through the heavy armor with ease and leaving gaping, blazing holes everywhere they hit. Before long, several of the battleship's main turrets were reduced to blazing wreckage leaking precious air.

"Sir, it's one of the flight commanders! Says you should see this!" Radec received a comm message from the CAG commander down on the flight deck.

"Patch him through!" he briefly replied. A smaller side-screen popped up on the main holo-display, showing a video feed from one of the fighters.

"This is Warhammer One! Not sure what you make of this, sir, but this ship is beginning to look somewhat... human!" the pilot reported. The video feed from the fighter's gun camera showed him strafing a point-defense turret with good results, followed by a brief image of letters painted on the hull of the alien vessel as he pulled up and away from the enemy ship.

Radec cursed under his breath. There went his dream of becoming the discoverer of a new alien foe - the giant letters, each at least two football fields long by the looks of them, were unmistakably human, even though he couldn't make out the shrift or the language. It certainly wasn't English or Mandarin, the two most common human languages that the long-standing rivals of the Imperium spoke, but certainly human and vaguely similar to Latin letters. The video had only captured a few of them before turning away, but there was clearly what looked like a "B" and an "A", and the chances of an alien race having letters or glyps of identical form were highly unlikely.

"Abort preparations for boarding, and pull the fighters back once their main guns and engines are down," Radec curtly ordered, visibly angered and disappointed, "We're taking this thing down!"

"Shouldn't we capture it for examination?" Crassus seemed surprised.

"If it is a human ship, then I doubt we'll find anything new or unusual about it, judging by their puny resistance! And if not, the Navy's R&D department will have all the time in the universe to rummage through the wreckage and find out!" Radec barked, "Now do it!"

"Aye, sir! All marines, stand down! CAG, finish what you're doing and return to base! Gunnery officer, the enemy is yours as soon as CAG is back in hangars!" Crassus relayed the order.

After taking out the last still-functional turrets, the swarm of Sidh fighters and drones would swiftly rearrange into neat formations and turn back to the home ship that was in the meantime training it's massive turrets at roughly where the alien ship's power cores were expected to be.

[Blakullar]

The bridge of the MSS Vladimir Lenin.
Unchartered space, dimension unknown.

"Hit confirmed, Captain," one of the gunnery crews relayed Sokolov, with nervousness, "but it doesn't seem to have done anything. Enemy ship is protected by some kind of energy shield!"
"Bah!" Sokolov roared into the communicator. "Line up the guns for another bar-"
That was the moment the fighters arrived. Missiles, energy blasts of various calibres and even suicide runs from combat drones slowly but assuredly gutted the once-magnificent dreadnought, the machines tearing up communications, weaponry and engines alike, and even a few potshots were taken at the bridge (but thankfully nothing too powerful, the transparent aluminium that shielded the command crew causing small-calibre rounds to bounce off), the point-defence lasers doing little to halt their onslaught. It seemed increasingly certain that the crew would get annihilated by the alien forces, the maiden voyage of the Lenin ending in absolute disaster. Fortunately for the crew, there was one saving grace...
"Sir, should we abandon ship?" Tokarev asked Sokolov, a question that the latter had already begun to seriously consider before the fighters attacked.
"Affirmative, Colonel. Everyone on deck, prepare to embark escape pods and descend to the planet!" Now all he would have to hope for was that the escape pods would merely be mistaken for nondescript debris from the Lenin...

Just after the pods launched, the fighters began to retreat. Soon, the already heavily-damaged Mecharussian warship was entirely at the mercy of the enemy vessel. It opened up another broadside on the power core, and the fusion reactor promptly detonated. A massive explosion ripped the Lenin into two giant pieces as if someone had pulled an enormous Christmas cracker, with one piece heading out into space. The other piece, however, started careening towards the planet below, alongside the jettisoned pods. The 'fight' (more of a slaughter) hadn't taken place too far away from the planetary ionosphere, and after about a half-minute of travelling, the several-kilometre partition of the Lenin began to glow a fiery orange as atmospheric heat surrounded the vessel fragment...

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Aboard Hammer of Thor

As the alien battleship disintegrated into a massive brilliant fireball, everyone on the bridge let out a jubilant cry. The great warship had split in two, it's rear end spinning wildly upwards, while the front section tumbled more slowly down towards the planet below.

"Congratulations, commander! Enemy ship confirmed destroyed!" Crassus congratulated Radec.

"Good work, gentlemen! What's the status on the orbital trajectories of the wreckage?" he spoke with a mixed expression of pride and concern. That planet below was an Imperial world, an inhabited world, so it was important to make sure some Imperial city's day would not be ruined big time by a couple kilometres of alien battleship crashing down on it from orbit.

"The rear section is losing velocity from planet's gravitational pull, 85% probability that it's trajectory will stabilize in high orbit. The front section's orbit is decaying fast, it will make planetfall within the next two hours. Fortunately, it will most likely break up into many smaller fragments, the majority of debris landing in ocean and uninhabited regions of the southwestern continent," the sensors officer reported after doing some calculations, "The remainder of the debris will stay in orbit for several months up to several years unless salvaged, the predicted orbit of the fragment cloud not posing any serious danger to the orbital facilities of this world. Sensors are also picking up what seems to be a few dozen escape pods, bound to make planetfall within the next 15 minutes on the same southwestern continent. Should we deploy drones to eliminate the foul xenos scum?"

"Negative. We will deal with the survivors eventually," Radec replied, "What's the status on damage and casualties?"

"CAG reports 103 attack drones and five fighters lost or damaged. Fortunately, all of our pilots managed to eject safely and are presently awaiting recovery. We've also lost a few hundred defense drones," Crassus reported.

"Excellent. Send out recovery craft, retrieve the pilots and every drone still repairable," Radec ordered, "Also, I want marines to remain on five-minute readiness at their dropships, and comm transmit a message calling off reinforcements and requesting salvage teams instead. But as of now, XO has the conn until further notice - I have an after-action report to file!"

"One more thing, sir," Crassus added, "The fireworks display we created will surely have been noticed planetside, as will be the tonnes of junk falling out of the sky for the next few weeks. Surely the residents will ask Navy for a public statement.

Indeed, Radec thought. Two capital ships trading fire in low orbit and one going down in flames after it's fusion core going critical wasn't exactly something nobody would notice. For a moment, he thought the citizens of Scatach Prime should simply be told a sanitized version of the truth - that the Navy had engaged a single human infiltrator ship and promptly neutralized the threat, praised be the Emperor. But on a second thought, such a statement would have dangerous political implications - the simple fact that a human warship had managed to infiltrate this deep into the Imperium without being detected would lead to more questions, the general public beginning to doubt the Navy's ability to protect the Imperium from such incursions, and that was simply unacceptable.

"We will issue no formal statement for now," he said after a moment of deliberation, "If anyone keeps pestering us about it, we will admit that there was an engagement with a hostile ship, that the Imperial Navy emerged victorious with minimal losses, and that there will be no further comment for now. As for the human, or alien, or whatever they are, survivors planetside, we should make our best efforts to track them down and capture or eliminate them before anyone catches wind of there being a whole crew of an enemy ship roaming freely on their homeworld."

"Agreed. I will let you know as soon as we have a lock on their landing cooordinates, sir," Crassus nodded.

---

For now, the outsiders were safe. Radec was determined, however, not to keep it that way for long. Before sending his marines after them, he had to send an after-action report to Sector Command - no easy task, considering the amount of recordings for future analysis had to be included.

[Blakullar]

Somewhere over the unchartered planet...

The bow half of the Lenin continued on its path towards the surface, seemingly unabated. Parts of it were sheared off as the heat melted some of the welds and joints holding the armour plating together, but the ship retained its general shape, resembling a two-pronged arrowhead. It lost half of its weight and kinetic power as overheating and atmospheric drag began to kick in, but even that still amounted to a kilometre-long object hurtling towards the ground at half a mile per second.

When the Lenin smashed almost vertically into what looked like a steppe, it did so with the force of a small nuclear bomb. The shockwave from the impact uprooted what few trees were in the immediate vicinity and threw up a huge dust cloud. Minor earthquakes would likely be felt in a radius of many miles from the crash site afterwards, making any ground-based approach to the shipwreck treacherous.

Two minutes after impact, a meteorite-like object could be seen falling towards the ground at near-supersonic speeds, twenty miles from the crash site. This wasn't a piece of debris from the ship though, as the deployment of a drogue parachute to slow the bell-shaped something down attested. The escape pod still hit the dusty ground hard with a metallic clang, keeling onto its side and rolling down a hill before stopping at a rocky outcrop. Ten seconds later, the side door gingerly creaked open, with the muzzle of a submachine gun poking out of the small gap.

When it became clear that there was nobody else out there, somebody stepped out with utmost care. Their gender could not have been determined by their face alone or even their shape, since the person was wearing a full suit of powered armour. After a glance around to confirm that there weren't any alien monstrosities nearby, the armoured figure, hand still on the trigger in case anything did show up, put their hand on their helmet and started to speak.

"This is Captain Marilova, gunnery commander of the MSS Vladimir Lenin. I've landed on the planet safely. Are there any Mecharussian Armed Forces assets nearby?"

It was such a stupid question to ask, given that she had landed on a completely unknown planet after her ship was literally torn in half by enemy aliens who had likely tuned in for radio communications. But she had to abide by protocol, i.e. attempt to contact nearby allied forces if in distress...

[Imperium Sidhicum]

---PRIORITY MESSAGE---

TIMESTAMP: 1730ZAUG192630

SOURCE: CS-7018 HAMMER OF THOR, A15-BF27
CMD. MARTELLUS RADEC

RECIPIENT: SECTOR COMMAND, ALBA CLUSTER

SUBJECT: AAR, AUG192630


Ave Imperator!

The following report contains details of naval action that took place in orbit of Scatach Prime on the timestamped date and time.

At 1550 Hours, an automated surveillance buoy in vicinity of Scatach Prime detected a space-time anomaly. Being the only naval asset present in the system, I ordered my ship to set course for the anomaly to investigate.

As we approached the signified area, sensors detected a jump signature, followed by the entry of an unidentified battleship-class vessel. Scans failed to identify the ship whose hull design did not match any known ship class in the registry. Hailing attempts failed, possibly due to technological differences in communications equipment, as my comms officer speculated. Consequently, I ordered to intercept the unidentified vessel while exercising due caution by staying outside standard engagement range.

As we approached the unidentified craft and attempted to hail it again by means of conventional radio rather than tightbeam, as is the standard procedure, it suddenly performed a turning maneuver and opened fire, narrowly missing Hammer of Thor. Although I and the ship's officers do not unanimously agree whether this was an attack or a warning shot, given the unidentified nature of our adversary, it's refusal to respond to our hails in any way, and the unprovoked nature of the shot, I made the decision to return fire.

Consequently, I ordered to deploy a passive defense drone screen and jam the enemy sensors, since scans suggested it's sensory systems to be primarily radio-frequency-based, and to engage stealth mode in order to outflank the enemy. The ruse succeeded, the enemy opening fire on the drone screen, while Hammer of Thor successfuly outflanked the hostile ship. By the time the enemy realized the ruse, we had already lined up for broadside exchange and opened fire. The broadside at close range inflicted heavy damage upon the enemy ship, which seemed to have no kind of energy shielding whatsoever. The enemy would attempt to return fire, some shots scoring hits on Hammer of Thor, but being safely absorbed by our energy shield without inflicting any damage. To prevent further enemy action, I ordered the deployment of fighters and attack drones with the goal of disabling critical enemy sub-systems in preparation to boarding. However, in light of the opposition's unidentified origin and lack of any intel on enemy ship layout, internal defenses and the number and capabilities of it's crew, I elected to abort boarding efforts and ordered to destroy the enemy instead.

After successfuly disabling enemy turrets and engines with minimal efforts, I recalled the fighter contingent and ordered a full broadside fired in attempt to breach the ship's fusion core. The attack succeeded, resulting in a critical hit and the disintegration of enemy vessel at 1658 Hours. The ship broke in two, rear half flying off under inertia and stabilizing in high orbit, where it presently remains, and the front half deorbiting on Scatach Prime, landing in an unpopulated region without damage to Imperial settlements. Sensors officer reported detecting a number of escape pods headed for the planet, indicating that some of the enemy crew remain alive and at large. I have taken the appropriate measures to track them down for capture or elimination.

The ship seems to have been of an inadequately-obsolete design despite it's size that is comparable to modern battleships. Spectrometric scans of it's hull composition indicated the use of alloys primarily designed to protect against kinetic projectiles, but offering little defense against contemporary directed-energy weapons. Likewise, it seemed to lack any kind of energy shielding or aerospace fighter contingent, and I speculate that it's primary intended function was transport and fire support to ground forces. Overall, the design seemed somewhat similar to some pre-Age of War Federation battleships, although the similarity is unquestionably vague at best.

It is my opinion that this ship belongs to a yet-unidentified human faction, as is signified by some unmistakably-human characters painted on the hull captured in combat records by our fighters. My lack of linguistic expertise unfortunately prevents me from making any definite judgement on that until a more complete investigation can be done.

I have made no public announcement to the planetary authorities or alerted them of the presence of hostile survivors because of political concerns that the infiltration of an enemy capital ship this deep in the Imperium could bring for the Navy.

Below are included attachments of various combat records from our fighter contingent and various other stations of the ship. I hope these provide sufficient information for a more proper analysis.

---

A good after-action report always helps career advancement, Radec thought upon hitting the "Send" button. Emperor's blood, how pissed is Callixtus, that old fart of an admiral, going to be, he thought and smiled.

Radec's rivalry with admiral Callixtus, commander of the 27th Battlefleet, was based mainly in generational differences - different ideas about proper naval command, and also the admiral's resentment for officers who would refuse to blindly defer to his judgement. Callixtus was an old-school naval officer, having risen through the ranks from an ordinary sailor over a span of two centuries, making most of his advancements during the Reconquest Wars. Consequently, he believed there was little if anything new about naval warfare for him to learn, and firmly believed a proper officer should spend at least a decade or two in any given rank to master everything it had to offer before even being considered for promotion. Radec, on the other hand, belonged to the post-Reconquest Wars generation of officers, fast-tracked for promotion from the ranks to replace the losses in the Navy brass after distinguishing themselves with very bold and daring, often reckless actions. Since the likes of Radec had earned their stars in pilot seats of fighters, dashing through enemy formations at insane speeds rather than by decades of patient work and study at classes and capital ship workstations, conflict with the older generation of officers was inevitable.

A few months ago, Radec had again rather recklessly distinguished himself by engaging a Skargh battlecruiser with a mere light cruiser in the embattled Salthrax system in spite of a direct order to withdraw. Moreover, he had personally led a daring fighter attack on the much larger ship, successfuly crippling it's bridge and forcing the Skargh to pull back. This in turn allowed Imperial reinforcements to arrive and drive the Skargh fleets out of the system entirely.

Although Radec's actions amounted to pure recklesness, indiscipline and insubordination in Callixtus's eyes, he couldn't openly punish an officer lauded as a hero not just by rank-and-file troops and civilians of Salthrax, but also by a number of fellow admirals in Sector Command. Consequently, he had rewarded the newly-made hero with a promotion and command of a brand-new strike cruiser of the latest design, only to send him off to patrol the outer systems far away from any action under pretext of running trials for the new ship. This way, Radec would learn patience and humility without being able to endanger any more precious equipment and lives for his personal glory, so the admiral had apparently thought.

Truth was, Radec wasn't a glory-hound. While he could be very reckless at times, it was never without a good reason. Having started his career as a fighter pilot, and survived long enough to be recognized as an ace (and quite a good one at that), Radec had learned to walk the fine line between courage and recklesness, carefully picking when to take risks, and only going all-in when the reward of success was great enough. Today's wars were all about swiftness, decisiveness and initiative. It was just something that the admiral, who had spent most of his commanding career fighting wars of naval attrition, where a rash decision could undo years of gradual success, struggled to understand.

---

"Sir, we have managed to locate some of the escape pods planetside. Should we deploy marine search parties?" Radec's comm buzzed with Crassus's voice.

"Negative. Deploy the 4th Century with their dropships, but have them stay in orbit until further notice. Send in some fighters with recon drones to sweep the area instead first, and do not engage any contacts unless fired upon. Let's see if we can find more of our uninvited guests before making a move," Radec ordered.

For the time being, it was largely pointless to try and capture the scattered survivors. Being stranded on an alien world, they would inevitably try to rally together and improve their odds - which, while making their resistence more formidable, would also make it easier to capture or annihilate them all rather than expend fuel and time trying to chase down every single one of them individually.

[Blakullar]

On the surface of the unchartered planet...
Approx. 50km north from the crash site of the Lenin.

Tokarev's pod had touched down in a more wooded area than Marilova's, colliding with a few trees as it made its way to the floor. The strange, alien flora contrasted with the desiccated ground - the plants seemed to be heavily adapted for the rough conditions of their habitat. Disembarking from the pod, MP-500 pistol at his side in case anything tried to eat or shoot at him, he soon found out that these plants had more than just low water tolerance to protect themselves as he brushed up against a small tree. Instead of his arm being pierced by a cactus-like barb, the artificial skin immediately started to blister from contact with some kind of sap. This tree, Tokarev guessed, must have been this planet's equivalent to a manchineel.

Initially Tokarev decided that trying to find his way out of the grove was the first move he would make, but the roar of some kind of engine in the sky quickly forced him to duck into a bush. He almost screamed in agony when he discovered the hard way that this was another one of the alien manchineels, some of the poisonous sap getting onto his face as well as any other exposed parts of skin. He figured, however, that waiting in the open to be picked off by a UFO was patently worse than having to go through a little pain hiding in a poisonous plant from said UFO. He bit into his jacket sleeve and yelled into it, muffling his pain as he waited for the enemy UFO to pass overhead.

Tokarev had been in the Mecharussian Space Marines, having completed his officer course in March 2145. Unfortunately, he had missed most of the action from the Russo-European War that was coming to a close, instead being deployed to occupied London while the Treaties of Vilnius and Riga were being drafted. He saw action in newly-annexed Greece in the post-war phase, but even then his company ended up being deployed as auxiliaries to Corinth while nearby Athens burned during the anti-Mecharussian riots that sprang up (and the subsequent massacre that followed). Soon he found himself in the command of Brigadier Sokolov. During the next uneventful six years, the pair became well-acquainted with one another, and Tokarev jumped at the chance to follow his old friend aboard the first Vladimir Lenin-class dreadnought to become its first mate. That little adventure had gone completely south, and now he was trapped on some extradimensional dustworld, being slowly ravaged by some dangerous alien plant, with his ship destroyed and no means of returning home.

His intention was that he would wait for the alien aircraft to pass by and attempt to radio any survivors, but the noise of the craft only grew louder, rather than quieter. He peered carefully out of the leaves and saw what resembled a drone scouring the crashed pod with some sort of holographic search beam. They're looking for us, he thought.

That was when Marilova's voice came over the radio. "...Repeat, are any Mecharussian forces out there alive?"
No, no, no! Tokarev began to panic, and started to punch the radio to try to dislodge the battery. Shut the fuck up!
Too late. The drone's attention was drawn by the racket doing this produced to Tokarev's bush, leaving him no choice but to try to down the thing. He leapt out of the bush with his gun drawn, landing on his stomach, and attempted to plant a 12.7x32mm round into the hovering alien construct.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Scatach Prime
Southwestern continent

The impact of a blaster-caliber round didn't do much to the drone other than shake it. Being designed to survive the rigors of flight in both atmosphere and outer space in a combat environment full of explosions, high-velocity shrapnel, debris and micro-meteorites, the drone merely registered the impact that dented it's outer shell slightly, and turned to scan the area.

The drone controller, flying a Fury interceptor some 20 clicks away, immediately ordered the drone to withdraw outside firing range and tagged the location, forwarding the captured video feed to Hammer of Thor. Moreover, his sensors were picking up radio transmissions from another source nearby. With a few gazes, using only his eyes to select appropriate commands on the HUD, the pilot had his other drones triangulate the transmission and pinpoint it's source. He would then tag the location and deploy the nearest drone for a closer inspection.

This time, the drone would not hover for a lengthy scan, instead making a high-speed passage. That one of the aliens only had what appeared to be an ordinary handblaster didn't mean others couldn't bring something more potent with them, and even though the loss of a single recon drone could easily be replaced by the ship's fabricators, the pilot still didn't want to take chances.

The high-speed pass was enough, however, for the drone to pick up another empty escape pod and another alien, clad in some kind of spacesuit or crude powered armor wandering aimlessly nearby. From what could be gathered at a distance, it did indeed seem to carry a larger firearm. The transmission signal emanating from the stranded creature again with good clarity indicated it was apparently trying to contact it's kind.

---

"Sir, the recon flights have picked up several dozen signatures so far and marked their locations. Some of them attempted to engage drones when they approached," the comms officer reported, "It seems they are lightly armed, ballistic small arms only. Several other escape pods were located in a badly damaged state, with no signs of life inside or nearby. Examination attributes their destruction to high-altitude collisions with debris from their ship, uncontrolled descent after failure of landing equipment, or landing in hostile environment."

Indeed, video feeds showed some of the located pods holed and blackened, still smoldering after dehermetization during re-entry. Some others were literally smashed to bits, scattered around craters left by their crash after their retros, drag fins, parachutes or whatever the aliens were using to control descent had failed. Two had landed in the treacherous mud flats that dotted the steppes of Scatach Prime's southwestern continent, a hard crust of dry mud and salt belying a depth of liquid mud that would suck in anything unfortunate enough to break through the surface. Only their rear ends stuck out of the bubbling pool of mud they were slowly sinking in, with no signs of escape. Provided the aliens inside were still alive, they were doomed to a slow death of suffocation, buried in their own pods beneath mud that would prevent any chance of escape.

"Show me those last two feeds!" Radec instructed. The bridge holo-display zoomed in the said two feeds, one showing a power-suited figure with some kind of rifle wandering about the desert, and the other displaying what clearly appeared to be a human male diving out of the shrub and firing off shots from a handgun at the drone, the screen shaking visibly as the bullets impacted on it before it retreated to safety.

"Seems like we're indeed dealing with humans," Crassus remarked, "Though the threat analysis software does not recognize the model of powered armor the other one is wearing. Other invaders seem to be wearing similar suits, or plain uniforms. Although it's too early to definitely say, preliminary spectrographic analysis of the vid-feeds indicate these armor suits are composed primarily of materials designed to protect against high-velocity projectile impacts rather than directed energy weapons, and the gas discharges from their firearms suggest the use of conventional, somewhat outdated formulations of chemical propellant. Our troops should have no problem in overcoming them in an open fight."

"Good. Recall the fighters and deploy long-range overwatch drones beyond visual range. Have the 4th Century remain in orbit until further notice. I want to see how the situation develops before making a move," Radec commanded. The invaders, now determined clearly to be of human origin, were dispersed in an area of roughly 80 square kilometres, so Radec wanted to be certain whether they would attempt to rally together, band in small groups or try to survive on their own before deciding in what manner to best capture them. Besides, the recovery crews working in orbit could also salvage valuable intel from the wreckage of the enemy ship, so Radec wanted as many pieces of the puzzle pieced together before making further calls.

---

Southwestern continent of Scatach Prime
70 km outside Bayit Gadol

"We better get back before dark," Riva spoke worriedly to her friend Nathan, "If the patrols spot us after curfew, we'll be in trouble!"

"Don't worry, I'll think of something," Nathan replied, "How many times ever do you get junk like that raining down from the sky?! If we manage to find and salvage even a tiny bit of that, we'll make a fortune!"

And he expressively gestured towards the horizon, where a massive pillar of smoke and dust loomed over the distant mountain range, meteor-like streaks raining down from the sky signifying there was still debris falling from orbit.

"Dream on..." Riva commented pessimisticaly, "By the time we get there, the Sidhae will be all over the place already and probably shoot you for just straying too close. If it's one of their ships, they will do their best to salvage it down to the last worthless hunk of metal, and if it's not, they will do it all the more."

"I think finding just one of those smaller bits falling this side of the mountains would more then suffice! Come on, we can still cover quite some distance before night, and I doubt the guards would much care about two human kids straying off in the wasteland for a night anyway! They won't even notice when we get back tomorrow!"

Riva Geller, a 19-year-old Jewish girl, and Nathan Epstein, her 20-year-old neighbor and closest friend, were both residents of Bayit Gadol human ghetto. Bayit Gadol settlement was established by humans, predominantly Jews, around 250 years ago and for a long time existed as a peaceful agricultural community - that is, until Sidhae returned from their exodus with a vengeance 70 years ago. The sparsely populated Scatach Prime's modest garrison and colonial militias were hardly a match for the battle-hardened Imperial legions, and the world remained under the Imperium ever since. In this time, Bayit Gadol had managed to grow from a commune of Jewish farmers to a respectable city of five million. Most of the current population was composed of Sidhae now, the former human inhabitants being segregated in a run-down ghetto in the outskirts of the city, the original site of the settlement. Most residents were first and second generation off-worlders, transferred here from other formerly-human worlds now conquered by Sidhae, Riva and Nathan belonging to the few remaining Jewish families descending from the original colonists.

Bayit Gadol's current main industry was salvage and recycling. After the Sidh occupation, someone somewhere had decided it would be a good idea to make Scatach Prime's southwestern steppes into a junkyard. Since Sidhae were disinterested in traditional farming, using their self-contained hydro-farms for food production instead, they saw no problem in turning former farmland surrounding the city into a landfill, ships from off-world flying in untold tons of scrap metal and dumping it near the city, often in a careless manner that scattered junk over an area of many miles. Great smelters were constructed in the undercity, where the salvaged metal would be cut, sorted and melted down. The human residents, being denied their farmland or more prestigious jobs, consequently turned to salvaging, collecting and delivering the scraps left by their new masters for processing in exchange of a nominal pay. Although the wages were barely enough for subsistence, arrogant as they were, Sidhae generally believed the humans should feel grateful and honoured for the privilege to be working for them rather than be outright exterminated, as had happened to many a human colony during the Reconquest Wars.

Life in Bayit Gadol ghetto was tough, though not nearly as brutish as in some other ghettos. Air was constantly polluted with poisonous smoke billowing from the smelter vents that opened in the city walls directly next to the ghetto - obviously of little concern to Sidhae, who resided in the clean and comfortable districts inside the walls. Crime was rampant, and hardly a day passed without a body or two being found in the streets of the ghetto - with Imperial authorities profoundly disinterested in human affairs as long as they kept working and didn't cause trouble, the closest thing to law in the ghetto was a loose set of rules imposed by criminal gangs within their turf, men who stepped out of line or simply possessed something coveted often ending up lying lifeless in the streets. The only forms of sanitation and medical care were whatever makeshift constructions the residents could rig up from salvaged junk. All that made the salvager's job so lucrative - at least one could get out of the smog-choked ghetto into fresh air for most of the day.

Still, life could have been a lot worse. At least there were no gang wars, no concerted anti-human pogroms save for isolated incidents of violence instigated by overzealous or just plain sadistic Sidhae, and the authorities were somewhat lenient towards humans, at least by Sidh standards. Although it was technically forbidden for humans to leave the ghetto after 2200 under penalty of summary destruction, the Sidh patrols usually looked the other way for a certain fee, more often than not paid in flesh if the suspect happened to be an attractive female, and even those who had nothing to offer were usually let off with a stern warning after receiving a good beating.

Unsurprisingly, young people like Riva and Nathan were willing to take these risks for the high pay-off that military-grade scrap from a wrecked warship could bring - the pay, however modest by Sidh standards, would let them move to the top of the ghetto's social structure, perhaps even enough to bribe Sidh officials into transferring them off-world to some pristine Frontier colony, where humans weren't as heavily discriminated.

[Blakullar]

At Tokarev's crash site.

The Colonel scowled behind his headgear as the bullets ricocheted off of the drone and smacked into some nearby foliage, causing the blistering sap to ooze from the flora. Whatever this thing was made of, it was certainly a lot tougher than Mecharussian materials. The bullets fired by the MP-500 were too smoothly-shaped for armour penetration, but the sheer amount of force behind them mandated that they didn't need to be. It was this rationale that caused him to fire on the buzzing aggressor in the first instance. However, his irritation and fear of retaliation turned to relief when the drone shot overhead and flew away into the distance. At least I've scared the damn thing off, he thought.

With the drone out of sight and blazing into the distance, Tokarev's attention was turned to the blisters on his skin. The pod had some medical supplies aboard, as surviving in the event of a crash mandated. He clambered into the metal construct and returned with a bandage wrapped around his arm. After that, he fished out his radio.
"You'd better have a good excuse for breaking radio silence, whoever you are!" he growled into the communicator. "You just nearly got me killed!"

Meanwhile, approx. 80km south...

"Apologies sir," Marilova responded. She had walked a short distance from the pod around a corner, in case any manhunters found it shortly after landing. "I was abiding by military protocol, which necessitates that-"
"I know about twenty-five," the raspy voice spoke back to her, referring to Aerofleet Ship Destruction Protocol #25. "Can't you use a little common sense every now and again, soldier? We're being hunted by alien forces who are likely tuning into our comms. What's worse, they're looking for us. They've likely sent a drone or two to your location as well."
"What do you propose we do, sir?" Marilova asked.
"We meet up. Strength in numbers and all of that. Now that I'm alone, I'll try to get into contact with the rest, but I'm not optimistic about their survival. These plants alone nearly fucked me up."
"Where are you?"
"I'm not sure, but this thing's saying that the Lenin wreck's about thirty miles to my south. What about you?"
"Then that makes me about fifty to your south. We should meet near to the Lenin. That goes for anyone else out there who's still alive."
"Agreed. Radio silence is mandatory from here onwards. First mate, out."

Just as Marilova was about to set off on a twenty-mile trek, the sound of perturbed metal striking the ground emanated from the pod. Someone's here.
She brushed up enough courage to poke her gun around the rock she was hiding behind, noticing a humanlike-shape. "Hey, you!" she shouted at the creature rooting through the crashed pod. "Stay out of that!"

Although she couldn't quite identify the thing searching the pod, probably looking for scrap (or a person to munch on, if it was an animal), or even if it could speak at all, let alone Russian, she figured that the sound of her stern voice would at least scare the being off and let her collect her belongings. Or try to kill her. One or the other.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Aboard Hammer of Thor
Docking Bay 12

"This better be as urgent as you say it is, lieutenant!" Radec spoke as he left the elevator to Bay 12 alongside a junior lieutenant supervising salvage operations from the bay, "In case you haven't noticed, I'm dealing with a situation here!"

"I'm sorry if I have disturbed you, sir! I thought you should see this yourself," the lieutenant spoke, "My crew has brought in some interesting articles from the wreckage of the alien ship that I thought could provide some insight into our adversary's nature."

They proceeded to approach a dropship, a Thunderhawk modified for salvage and rescue operations. Men of the salvage crew were currently busy unloading an assortment of wreckage and junk hauled in by the ship's drones. For a craft of that size, the amount seemed rather small - apparently they had stumbled upon something important enough to cease further operations and report back in early.

"And I'm looking at what, exactly..." Radec spoke with displeasure, failing to see anything of note besides hunks of twisted metal of various sizes.

"This, sir! We've found bodies!" lieutenant pointed out at several body bags laid down aside from the rest of the wreckage. Salvage ships would commonly carry a stock of body bags aboard, since the remains of unlucky crewmen drifting in space were nothing usual after space combat. In the case of Sidh dead, their bodies would be recovered for honourable burial, while human and alien corpses could in the very least be rendered down into basic amino-acids, supplementing the ship's limited nutrient supply. While Sidh opinions about eating processed enemy dead varied, most troops held little objection to it, since the bodies were rendered down to most basic organic compounds, any trace of their origin being biologically and chemically unrecognizable at that point. While outsiders were often terrified and disgusted by the practice, it fitted well with the ruthless pragmatism of Sidhae, seeing even the dead as just another resource to be recycled and reused.

Radec unzipped one of the bags and saw a swollen, bluish face of a middle-aged human man staring back at him. The burst blood vessels in the eyes, bruising of the skin, and frozen blood on lips and ears suggested this man had died of vacuum exposure, being sucked out into space after a hull breach. Although the body was still covered in frost, it seemed soft and pliable - contrary to popular opinion, bodies did not immediately freeze down to bone in outer space.

He proceeded to open another bag, and found a young woman's body in it, one side of her face horribly burned in some explosion. Lumps of solidified metal sticking to the exposed skull bone indicated she had been close enough to a plasma cannon impact to be sprayed with molten metal. What did catch Radec's attention, however, were strands of synthetic filament sticking out from her flesh in the exposed wound, not unlike the various wires running through Sidh own augmented bodies.

"Take them to the medbay's morgue and tell Dr. Vitellus to start on autopsies immediately! These things sure look human, but there's something off about them. I want to know what exactly we're dealing with as soon as possible!" he commanded, referring to the ship's chief medical officer, who ministered over Hammer of Thor's hi-tech medbay that could easily accomodate a small town and treat practically any injury a Sidh could survive along with a team of 95 lesser medical staff.

"We selected these parts of wreckage because they seem to originate from different parts of the ship," the lieutenant pointed at the assorted wreckage pieces, "Their examination should provide us with a better understanding of their ship's structure, material and methods of construction. Among the more unusual artifacts, we also found this..."

With that, he pointed at a bronze bust of some unmistakably-human character, an aged bald man sporting mustach and a goatee, that his men had found floating in space among other junk. No doubt a prominent leader of some sort, Radec thought. His own ship was full of images of the Emperor and the Empress, and even the Federation humans who were generally averse to cults of personality would habitually carry images of their leaders aboard their ships. Something, probably a name, was inscribed on the underside of the bust in the same strange human script Radec had seen in the combat records on the enemy hull. He clearly recognized the Latin "E" and "H", and some character that looked like an inverted "N", but the symbols made no sense otherwise. The person depicted also seemed somewhat familiar.

---

Southwestern continent of Scatach Prime
87 km outside Bayit Gadol

Human scavengers were crafty folk. Since their job often required them to cover great distances, many had rigged up improvised vehicles, hidden amongst the junk outside the ghetto - while the Sidh authorities didn't much care about scavengers having some forms of vehicles to haul in their salvage, other humans who would gladly profit from stealing another man's ride were a problem, necessitating such hiding.

Riva and Nathan had constructed their solar-powered dune buggy all by themselves. Granted, it was light and couldn't haul as much cargo as some of the petrol-driven vehicles, but it was fast, required no fuel, and most importantly, it was quiet - a necessary feature to avoid Sidh patrols after curfew. Taking every opportunity to make some money, Riva and Nathan would not limit themselves to salvaging, but also go on smuggling runs, transporting various forms of contraband between Bayit Gadol and other nearby cities and settlements. One thing was returning late for curfew, in which case the usual punishment was an arbitrarily-imposed "fine" or a beating, but no amount of money, sexual favours or begging could save them if they were caught smuggling illicit goods.

Sidh authorities didn't care much about alcohol, narcotics, pornography or other typical black market items - in fact, the patrolmen were just as likely to skim off the cream from such a shipment and let the smugglers off as they were to arrest them, and even if arrested, they would at worst be roughed up in the local Urban Security precinct for a day or two and let off after confiscation of their vehicle and goods. In fact, they tacitly approved of various addictive and decadent commodities being spread among humans, facilitating their degeneration - ghettos and their populaces served an important purpose as a demonstrable example of human decadence and corruption to the Sidh population. They also served as an outlet for Sidhae looking for forbidden pleasures - many a Sidh who craved to indulge in a binge of drinking, drug use and sexual debauchery would secretly visit the ghetto and it's many establishments providing just such an entertainment, let off some steam, and return to being a prudish upstanding Sidh citizen afterwards.

What Sidh authorities were really looking for was weapons, explosives, military equipment, anti-Sidh propaganda - anything that could be interpreted as facilitating a resistance movement. Smugglers caught with such a cargo could expect no mercy - they would be punished in any one of a number of excruciating, gruesome and terrifying ways limited only by the imagination of their captors', execution after a public flogging session ranking amongst the mildest. Riva and Nathan would on occasion do just such shipments - not because there would be much in a way of resistance in their ghetto, but because the local gangs needed their weapon stocks replenished from time to time, and paid well to any willing to take the risks.

---

"Look! There!" Riva shouted, pointing at an object in the distance, "Looks like some kind of drop pod!"

"Indeed," Nathan remarked, stopping the buggy and reaching for his binoculars. "Looks deserted. Might be worth checking out," he stated after briefly examining the surroundings and picking up no signs of activity."

They approached with due caution - if this was an Imperial Navy drop pod, the soldiers riding in it could not be far, and they certainly wouldn't take kindly to some human vermin delving around in their pod. Stopping behind an outcropping of rock some hundred paces from the pod, the two youths dismounted.

"Stay with the ride," Nathan instructed his companion, "I'll go check it out!"

"I'll go with you!" Riva objected.

"No. Someone should stay with the buggy in case we need to scoot, and if it's safe, I'll call you!" Nathan declined.

---

Nathan approached the pod and found it still warm from the re-entry, meaning it's original occupant couldn't be far. The design struck him as somewhat odd - he had seen enough Imperial drop pods amongst the scrap in his youg life, and knew all of them to be heavily armored to survive anti-aircraft fire and debris impacts that were commonplace in combat drops. This one, on the other hand, only had a heat shield, and rather oddly, a large parachute that was spread on the ground - while Sidh pods had one too, it was usually only deployed in emergencies, if the retro-rockets and air brakes failed to deploy, and none of the said landing aids besides the parachute seemed to be present on this pod. Nathan smiled briefly as he examined the parachute - the paracords would fetch a good price on the market, and the fabric would make a nice dress for Riva. Even though the two weren't exactly a couple, there was still a certain degree of attraction between the two youngsters, and Nathan thought a gift of a synth-silk dress would certainly improve his chances with his female companion.

Taking a quick look around, Nathan approached the pod's hatch, finding it open. The pod was small, apparently only designed for a single occupant rather than an entire decury as was the case with military drop pods. Apparently this was an emergency escape pod. He looked inside and found a box with MREs and medical supplies just next to the seat. Another great catch - now they'll be able to spend a few more days out in the wasteland looking for useful salvage.

A stern shout in a foreign tongue stopped his search. Nathan snapped around to face a menacing power-armored figure running towards him.

Having grown up in the human ghetto of a Sidh world, Nathan knew all too well that powered armor meant serious trouble, especially if it was shouting and charging his way. Here, someone in powered armor chasing after one was invariably followed by great pain, and more often than not also death. With lighting speed he snapped around and dashed back to the buggy.

"RUN!!!" he screamed to Riva at the top of his lungs.

For an instant, Riva considered coming to her friend's aid with the shotgun, neatly tucked over the buggy's instrument panel - the wasteland contained some nasty wildlife and unsavoury characters who would not hesitate to rob unwary scavengers, so some protection was never unnecessary. However, her hands froze when she saw an armored figure chasing after Nathan. One thing was defending against wildlife and brigands - even the Sidh authorities recognized the necessity, and would not object to humans bringing a personal piece out to the wasteland despite human ownership of firearms being formally forbidden. However, pulling a gun on a Sidh for any reason was something entirely different, the consequences not being limited to herself and Nathan - Sidhae had very little tolerance for inferior species threatening, let alone shooting, one of their own, and would likely retaliate against the offenders' families as well.

Riva remembered well the last time a Sidh was shot in the ghetto. Being part of a merry company carousing in one of the ghetto's many drinking establishments, the man had taken a bit too great fancy of one of the barmaids, and had attempted to force himself upon her after she refused his drunken advances. The girl's boyfriend, being present, caught the Sidh attempting to rape his woman in the back alley and shot him. While technically humans weren't forbidden from defending themselves within the ghetto, and any Sidhae entered the human premises at their own risk, this worked both ways - the authorities would not protect miscreant Sidhae against deserved retaliation, but neither would they intervene on on behalf of the humans. In any case, the next day some sixty of the killed Sidh's friends and acquaintances arrived armed to the teeth and demanded that the offender, his girlfriend and their families be handed over, threatening a massacre if their demands were refused. The young man was nowhere to be found, so after the Sidh party made good on their threats and executed a dozen randomly-picked victims, the local gang delivered the girl and her parents to them for the sake of peace. After executing the girl's parents before her eyes, they would pour acid over her head in front of everyone, leaving her blind and horribly disfigured for life, and threatened further violence next week if the boy wasn't delivered to them by then, offering a sizable bounty for his head as an additional incentive. Last Riva had heard, the poor lad was tracked down and handed over to Sidhae after a few days by a different gang, and nobody knew what became of him, though it was certainly a most dreadful fate.

Knowing this, she left the shotgun in it's place and ran forwards with her hands raised.

"Forgive us, forgive us, my lord! We meant no offense! We are just two poor souls looking for scrap metal to sell!" she shouted to the armored figure in Sidh just as it tackled Nathan to the ground, "Please, don't hurt us!"

With that, she knelt prostrate in submission. Humility usually softened the hearts of Sidhae, she knew - at least enough to let them off with a slap and a spit of disgust rather than a blaster round to the head. Riva remained tense and prostrate, peeking through her brow to see how the Sidh would react.

Strangely enough, the armored figure seemed to be at least as surprised in seeing them as they were terrified by it.

[Blakullar]

Close to Marilova's crash site.

Russian
English

"What the hell are you talking about?" the agitated captain asked the begging young girl. To Marilova, the girl sounded like she was shouting in some bastardisation of a thousand ancient south European languages. Judging from her prostration, however, she seemed terrified of her, as did the young man who she caught rifling through her survival kit. What was also exceptional about this encounter was that these 'aliens' were definitively human...

"What the hell are you talking about?" she repeated her question to the girl, this time in crystalline English. In the Mechanocracy of Russia, all military officers and many civilians as well were taught at least basic English, as it was widely viewed as a universal standard for communication. Indeed it was, back home where almost every foreigner that visited the Mechanocracy knew some English, and this made dealings between Mecharussians and foreigners orders of magnitude more simple. Marilova took this initiative and decided one day to start a course in Moscow University to learn English fluently. By some off-chance, she believed that, despite the home dimension and this place being literal worlds apart, even these foreigners might happen to know some of the language.

"Apologies. I'm not from around here, as by now should be obvious!" The captain tried to sound as friendly to the probably-traumatised locals as possible, but decided upon keeping her guard up nevertheless, especially after spotting the scattergun on the buggy nearby. "Would one of you care to fill me in on what's going on?"

Meanwhile, approx. 79km north...

"Bugger!" Tokarev cursed aloud as his leg scratched a thorn-covered steppe plant for the seventeenth time, the barb painfully dredging a bloody trench into the synthetic skin. What plant won't try to kill you in this godforsaken place?!

He had been walking for two minutes now, and he had only travelled eight hundred metres from the pod when he stumbled into a thicket. Now he was being assaulted by hundreds of plants, some of them the same manchineels as before, but others bearing more resemblance to cacti than anything else. One of them even tried to bite his leg - a larger, more dangerous version of the Venus flytraps back home, he deduced - before he severed it at the stem using his plasteel combat knife. At least the treetops are shading me from that sun, he thought, trying hard to find some good in this situation.

These plants would be the least of his problems, however, as evidenced by a deep growl coming from one of the bushes. Tokarev didn't even have ten seconds to survey the area when the beast set itself upon him, pushing him into the undergrowth. Most of the thorns were caught by his jacket, but some of them dug into more exposed pieces of skin. The monster that attacked him, however, was clearly adapted for the dangerous plant life and didn't feel a thing. Lucky bastard! the colonel shouted in his mind.

What the jaguar-sized beast didn't account for, however, was the knife that Tokarev still had in his right hand. Soon, he saw an opening in the assault to make his move and he plunged the blade deep into where he thought the creature's heart would be...

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Southwestern continent of Scatach Prime
87 km from Bayit Gadol

The Sidh, apparently a woman judging by her voice, didn't seem overly hostile, considering how she had just caught a human rifling through her possessions, Riva thought. What she found most strange was the fact that the Sidh woman bothered to speak to her in a human language - most Sidhae she was accustomed to dealing with would not sully their tongues with human speech, some going as far as using a translation software even though most of them spoke at least one human tongue perfectly. What was even more strange was that the first language the Sidh addressed her in was Russian.

Riva knew some Russian because of her neighbor, uncle Fyodor, an old electrician who had helped her and Nathan with building their buggy, though her command of the language was limited to a few basic phrases and an abundance of profanities that the said uncle Fyodor was prone to use when arguing with his Russian friends. There were quite a few Russians in Bayit Gadol ghetto, most of them off-worlders transferred here in recent years. Truth be told, if there were any places in the Imperium where multiculturalism thrived, it was in the ghettos. There was no discrimination in the ghetto - everyone was living in the same miserable run-down slums, surviving on the same odd jobs or menial labour in Sidh facilities, and being equally treated like shit by their Sidh masters regardless of colour or creed.

Still, English was the common tongue among humans along with Mandarin, people in this ghetto being more proficient with the former, so Riva decided to respond in English. She noted the Sidh woman spoke with a strange, outlandish accent. Sidhae who spoke English used a distinct, ancient form of language dating back to Old Terra that sounded quite different from the contemporary variant spoken by most humans, but this woman's speech was nothing like it.

"My lady, please forgive us our intrusion! We were only scavenging for scraps and want no trouble!" she repeated in English humbly, "As to filling you in, we have no knowledge of what you want of us. Please, just let us leave!"

---

Aboard Hammer of Thor

"Skipper, I think we have a problem!" the lieutenant manning the workstation from which the long-range drones were being controlled announced.

"What now!?" Radec grumbled. All this fuss of late was beginning to get on his nerves.

"It's one of the survivors. I think it just made contact with the natives."

Great. Just fucking great, Radec thought, hoping that the encounter would result in a fight and death of whoever the "natives" were, or his efforts to keep things discreet from the planet's populace and especially the civil administration would be brought to naught.

"What are they doing? Try listening in on them!" he ordered.

Although the drone that circled in the skies above the area the where enemy survivors had landed was flying over 10 kilometres high, well beyond sight of anyone on the ground who didn't know where exactly to look, it's powerful cameras could zoom in close enough to literally read from the speakers' lips, but it had yet another, even more practical tool for listening to conversations from such distance. A remote listening device would lock invisible laser beams onto any suitable surfaces - glass panes, metal plates, even leaves and blades of grass - and measure their minute fluctuations from sound waves. After filtering out environmental disturbances, a somewhat distorted but entirely inteligible feed of an ongoing conversation and sounds from the surrounding area could be provided.

"Sir, one of the other contacts is being attacked by a pantheraptor," the lieutenant further reported. These tough, thick-hided panther-like leathery beasts were reknown for their viciousness, and were introduced on a number of Imperial worlds, some jungle-dwelling species growing to huge sizes. The species introduced on Scatach wasn't one of them, being roughly the same size and filling the same ecological niche as a Terran leopard.

"Too bad for him, the better for us!" Radec indifferently dismissed, "Let's hear what those three are speaking!"

The lieutenant issued commands to the drone, and moments later, a reasonably-qualitative audio feed of the ongoing conversation began to play on the speakers.

[Blakullar]

Close to Marilova's crash site.

"Would you calm down?!" the captain yelled at the human while grabbing her shoulders, who luckily enough indeed understood English. She did not attempt to be hostile, merely shocking her out of her fearful tirade.
"What do you want from us?" the girl enquired again, still terrified of the power-armoured figure towering above her.
"For now, I want answers," the captain responded. "Where am I, who are you, and what was that language you were speaking?"
With that, the girl's face shifted from pure panic to one of confusion. "...Er, you're on Scatach Prime. My name is Riva, this is Nathan." Marilova looked up at the male, who was still on the floor after she had tackled him. "That language is spoken by the Sidh people..."
"The what people?" Now Marilova was incredulous as well. "As I said, I'm not from around here. I know nothing of this place. Is it safe to assume that these, uh, 'Sidh', were the ones who shot us out of orbit?"

The two natives looked to each other for a brief second. This character must have come from far away to have not even heard of the Sidhae. Part of them thought that this might have even been a test, expecting Marilova to start speaking Sidh with as much fluency as she talked to them in English. Nonetheless, Riva felt as though it would do no harm to explain to the captain...
"The Sidh people are the lords and masters of this world and thousands more that stand united under the banner of the Imperium of Sidhae," she began. "The great Empress is their leader, whose command they heed, her legions are numberless and her fleets outnumber the stars themselves. Evidently, you have had the misfortune of meeting one of her ships in battle." The girl spoke of the mysterious Sidhae as if she revered them as invincible war gods. However, her tone betrayed a distinctly different view of the aliens. One that was much less flattering...
"They were once human, like ourselves, before they embraced body augmentation and the great Emperor's teachings," Nathan added. "They hold a bitter hatred for humanity because of the Age of War that nearly destroyed their empire and race, and have been at near-constant war with humans for centuries since. We have the questionable privilege of being their subjects."
"I'm terribly sorry for your plight at the hands of the Sidh," the captain responded.

For the time being, Marilova thought it to be prudent to not reveal that she too was a cyborg, a class-B of the Machine Race to be exact. Unlike Sidhae, Mecharussian cyborgs were born naturally, and once they came of age they were augmented. To what standard they were built depended on how many Commodity ration tickets - one of the three primary currencies of Mechanocratic Russia - they possessed. Augmentations usually came in class-based packages: a single augmentation was all that was required to reach class-D, the lowest tier of the Machine Race. Next was class-C, which was usually quantified as people with full-limb enhancements as well as the occasional skin-graft. After that was class-B, for whom the vast majority of their exterior and some of their interior were bionically-augmented. Finally, there was class-A - the class-As almost completely eschewed their biological forms, with only their heavily-augmented brains betraying any hint that they were anything but androids.

Another thing that Marilova was antsy to keep well under wraps was the fact that she almost sympathised with the Sidh race's intense hostility towards humans. It was a similar scenario back home: the more brutish and nationalistic of the Machine Race, often called 'skinheads' (named for a similarly-boorish subculture that started almost 200 years ago), would patrol city streets as 'haggis¹-bashing' gangs to search for any creature labelled as organicheskiy² with the purpose of robbing, killing or simply beating them for fun. The authorities became notorious for looking the other way: the official reasoning for this was that, since organics did not have any internal computer systems on board, they couldn't be tracked, but anyone with half of a brain could see that it was a way of persuading people, under threat of violence, to assimilate into the Government's project of creating the ultimate race, as dictated by the official State doctrine of Neo-Eugenics. At one point, in the 2090s, violence escalated to such an extent that specialised 'Organic Ghettoes' began to be constructed across the Mechanocracy, officially to house the disaffected non-augmented beings and keep them safe from harm. In practice, these ghettoes rapidly descended into a state of desuetude and squalor, but they actually served their purpose of keeping out the gangs of Machine Race exceptionally well, even to this day.

1 = A pejorative term for non-augmented humans in the Mechanocracy, roughly equivalent to 'nigger' or 'wetback'.
2 = A blanket term for sentient, but not augmented, beings. Comes from the Russian word for 'organic'.

Meanwhile, in the forest to the far north...

Tokarev heard the vicious pantheraptor screech as he plunged his knife into the cat-like creature's torso, but they were certainly not dying screams. Instead, stabbing the beast there only seemed to enrage it. Tokarev soon found out why: its hide was capable of not just stopping the barbs and blisters of the native plant life, but could absorb a blow from a knife too. Desperately trying to tug the knife out of the pantheraptor's chest, Tokarev punched it in the throat to stop its dagger-like teeth from clamping down on him. The cat reeled back, seemingly shocked by the blow, and seemed to turn to run off, allowing Tokarev to remove the knife easily enough. Soon, the pantheraptor charged at him again with a roar that almost resembled a lion's. This gave the colonel an idea...

As the pantheraptor pounced, Tokarev ducked underneath it as it flew overhead and shot the knife upwards into its throat. As he had expected, the creature's neck was indeed a weak spot, as another scream from the cat seemed to confirm. Thick, warm blood flowed down Tokarev's leather glove onto his arm as the pantheraptor breathed its last, the colonel twisting the knife clockwise to create a deeper cut and kill the still-thrashing monster quicker. Soon, the pantheraptor was as good as dead, its throat cut and blood flowing into the loose soil like a viscous red river.

Instead of allowing the creature to simply rot however, Tokarev decided to turn the tables on the beast. He would look for a clearing in the forest, set up camp there for the night and keep the pantheraptor to cook and eat if for some reason his MREs went missing. How he'd actually get the meat would be a problem for later to solve.

Soon, he found said clearing and began to scour the place for pieces of wood, piling up any he found onto the ground next to the tree the pantheraptor corpse had been hoisted up to stop scavengers from stealing it in his absence. It was only when he tried to light the fire by rubbing the twigs together when he realised exactly what the twigs were...
"Argh, FUUUUCK!" Tokarev shouted loudly when the smoke bypassed his goggles (damaged in the fight with the pantheraptor) and entered his eyes, stinging the left one so badly that he couldn't open it. Back home, smoke from manchineel wood was so irritable that it caused blindness. Apparently the manchineel here had the same trait. Fortunately, he had a bionic eye that wasn't affected by the fumes, so he wasn't totally blinded. Even so, it was just another pain to have to put up with...

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Scatach Prime
City of Bayit Gadol

"Citizens, hear me! I have spent a lifetime in service of our glorious Empress! I have fought a thousand battles in Her exalted name, I have witnessed a thousand unspeakable atrocities against Her valiant subjects, and I have slain numberless enemies of our great Imperium and race! I have now devoted my life to preaching the Word!"

A crowd of interested onlookers slowly began to assemble as the passionate words echoed across the square. A Word Bearer's sermon was always interesting to attend - even those Sidhae who took all this "preaching the Word" business with a pinch of salt would admit it was in the very least entertaining to hear a Word Bearer lavish the populace with his oratory talents.

"For 70 years now, this world has been under the aegis of our splendorous empire that knows no match among the stars! And yet I, a newcomer to this world, am disappointed! Some will ask what drives me to speak such harsh words. Know then, that it is your patent lack of faith in the Word!"

The assembling people listened in carefully. Although Word Bearers commanded no formal authority, their words were deeply heeded by many patriotic and faithful citizens, and the verdict of a Word Bearer could often make or break a man's political or military career.

---

Word Bearers were an oddity in a society otherwise known for cold rationality and pragmatism like Sidh. While all proper Sidhae would follow the Emperor's teachings more or less strictly, there were always some who would take it to extremes even by Sidh standards. Men and women who styled themselves Word Bearers were among those some.

A Word Bearer was basically the combination of a military chaplain, propagandist, psychological counselor and political officer. Veteran soldiers who had consistently distinguished themselves with extreme valour and unswerving faith in Sidh ideology and state policies, and had a stirling personal reputation and disciplinary record would often be invited to become Word Bearers, studying the arts of speechcraft, propaganda and crowd psychology among other things. Among other requirements, one was required to completely memorize the Word of the Emperor and demonstrate high competence in other sources pertaining to his teachings. Those who passed the rigorous examinations would earn the title of Word Bearer, taking a vow to preach the Word to all who would listen.

Although Word Bearers were primarily intended to promote high ethical and ideological standards among the troops and counsel them on spiritual matters, it didn't keep them from also preaching to the civilian populace, especially since they would retain the title and the obligations that came with it after retiring from active service. Hence it was not uncommon to see a Word Bearer in his distinct dress in the streets, enthusiastically preaching to a crowd of listeners. While all of them were without question fanatics who quite literally regarded the Emperor as a deity, most would simply remind their fellow citizens of proper Sidh virtues. There were, however, a certain number who would not contend themselves to just that, and used their oratory skills for more darker purposes.

Azariah Carron, known to his disciples simply as Brother Azariah, was just one such Word Bearer. Ever since his arrival on Scatach Prime a week ago, he was being tailed by Domestic Security agents - the man was placed on Domestic Security watchlist for being "dangerously patriotic", and given the general jingoist sentiment of Sidh society, that was saying a lot. Carron had several counts of inciting riot on him - he had inspired and led multiple anti-human pogroms, and took great pride in the fact.

While the likes of him contended themselves with verbal human or xeno-bashing, the authorities didn't mind such zealots much. However, when such fanatics started a pogrom that would erupt into weeks of brutal urban combat, necessitating the near-extermination of the local human populace to put an end to the fighting, or worse, started to criticize local authority figures by accusing them of insufficient faith in the Emperor's Word and their laxity in following proper Sidh ways, they became a problem. Since these firebrand preachers had considerable public support, and punishing them for being excessively patriotic would set a poor example by contradicting the official Imperial policy pertaining to patriotic propaganda, these fanatical Word Bearers were usually just kindly asked to leave the world by Domestic Security. Most, no matter how zealous, had enough sense not to ignore a request by Domestic Security, since the said organization wasn't known for being in the habit of asking twice. So the said Word Bearers would leave for new places in need of hearing the Word, obviously after throwing a tantrum about their disappointment with the Imperial authorities protecting vice, heresy and un-Sidh filth, while the few foolish enough to ignore D-Sec's warning would soon die in "accidents".

---

"I have walked the streets of this city, and I must profess I have rarely seen a greater den of vice and depravity! Good citizens, have you no decency or faith left at all?! I cannot count the times in these few days that I have seen the people of this city fail to pay proper reverence to our great Father's image, to heed the speeches of our glorious Empress with proper awe, heard people utter His holy name in vain! Small are these sins, you may say? Then know - all great things begin with a multitude of smaller ones! Indulgence in lesser sins leads to indulgence in greater ones, and indulgence in great sins - to heresy and treason! So I ask of you, good citizens of Bayit Gadol - repent! Repent and renounce your foul ways, and embrace the light of the Word as all proper Sidhae must!"

Brother Azariah paused to look upon his audience, which was no doubt impressed by his passionate speech, and continued, starting to berate all the sinners and their transgressions irrespective of rank and standing. While some more cynical listeners would at first grin under their noses, even the most hardened sinners were taken aback when Brother Azariah started to paint vivid images of the foul depravity and decadence festering in the society of their city. He would berate workers for taking undue sick leave and failing to contribute their utmost to the ongoing war effort in the battlefield of industrial production, while worthier children of the Emperor were shedding their blood on the frontlines against foul humans and aliens. He would berate scientists for squandering time and investment on useless theories and intellectual talk, when they should be busy inventing and perfecting things that save Sidh lives and take those of their enemies. He would berate soldiers for their excessive drinking, brawling and sexual laxity where they should be training, meditating and preparing to give their lives in the Emperor's glory. He would berate officials for their inadequate attention to stately matters. And most importantly, Brother Azariah berated everyone for pretending to be a good honest Sidh while secretly watching degenerate and unpatriotic vids laden with un-Sidh ideas and fornication, attending dens of drunkenness, narcotics, gambling and debauchery, and generally behaving no different from lowlife humans rather than as the great Emperor had willed them to.

"And where does all this decadent filth come from! I tell you - it comes from just across the walls!" Brother Azariah bellowed, expressively gesturing towards the city walls, behind which lied the human ghetto, "It comes from that most foul place festering of corruption and degeneracy, the place inhabited by the human filth! These... scum, these... vermin, these... these infidels who have been shown the light of the Word and rejected it are the source of all the worst corruption in this city's society! Why, WHY do you, good people, pretend to be blind to the foul influence of the enemy and suffer them in your midst?! Why do you still hesitate to purge yourselves clean of sin and heresy!? I say - ENOUGH! Are there still any proper, decent Sidhae left here to say it with me?!"

"We say - ENOUGH!" a number from the crowd shouted.

"I can't hear you! Is that all there is of you?!" Azariah shouted, "Are there really no more proper Sidhae in this corrupt town?!"

"WE SAY - ENOUGH!" more Sidhae shouted again.

"Louder!"

"ENOUGH!!!"

"Louder!!!"

"EEENOOUUGH!!!" now the entire crowd erupted into a thunderous roar.

"Are you ready to renounce your sins?!"

"YEAH!"

"Are you ready to cleanse your city of heresy and corruption?!"

"YEAH!"

"What was that again?!"

"YEEEEAAAH!!!"

"Then go, my brethren, and prove it!"

---

By now, the Sidh crowd had filled the entire square and was roaring in patriotic frenzy. Seemingly out of nowhere, Imperial banners and gilded icons of the Emperor emerged and were raised above the crowd. Some began to sing patriotic songs, more joining them, while others scattered to prepare for the coming cleansing.

"Base, I think we have a situation on our hands!" one of the Domestic Security agents assigned to follow Azariah radioed in to the dispatch, having so far remained discreetly in shadows outside open view.

[Blakullar]

English
Sidh

Inside of the Bayit Gadol ghetto.

"Three of clubs."
"Go fish."
"Fuck off!"
Atop a nondescript, corrugated-metal tower, two humans were playing cards using a barrel as a table. A third was staring through a telescope in the direction of the western gates, an ancient bolt-action rifle to the side. Despite its age, that rifle was still powerful enough to bring down a rampaging Sidh, particularly of the belligerent, rebar-wielding kind that had walked out of the Iron Cauldron bar club nearby, drunk. The Cauldron wasn't as seedy as some of the other establishments in the ghetto. It was a typical watering-hole, housed in the ruins of what at some point must have been a cooling tower for a nuclear power station (hence how it got its name), and it had been that way since the ghetto's foundation. The Greencoat Gang, who had made a command centre of the club, was antsy to keep it that way as well. They knew that the Sidhae were less than pleased with the existence of many gang-run hubs of debauchery and were keen to ensure that the Cauldron wouldn't be burned to the ground because of that. That was also the reason the place was as heavily-guarded as it was. The gang maintained a considerable stash of weapons nearby, which included several machine guns and a couple of bazookas, in case there was a pogrom and the Cauldron was in direct danger.

Suddenly, the man on the telescope turned to the card-players, a worried look on his face. "Guys, you'd better have a look at this! Something's goin' down at the west gates!"
One of the gangsters put his cards down. "Looks like I'm gonna have to kick your ass at this later!" he said to his opponent, laughing. "Let's have a look, Webley!"
The gangster looked into the telescope toward the gates. Surely enough, the scene out there was utter chaos. The steel gates heaved as large numbers of Sidhae banged on them, the ghetto guards trying to keep them at bay to little avail. Before long, the gates buckled and, with an almighty thud, crashed to the ground. The angry mob poured into the ghetto, their faces showing violent intent.
"Shit," the gangster said out loud once he realised that this was no laughing matter. "FLAN!" he shouted towards the Cauldron, where a woman was stood on a balcony. "WE GOT MUCHO TANKIES HEADED OUR WAY! LOOKS LIKE A DAMN POGROM!"
The woman, who like the gangsters was wearing a dark-green duster, gave a thumbs up and ran back inside. Before long, gangsters with improvised barricades and automatic weaponry were outside in force, setting themselves up between the towers.
"Web, go find Minki and try to get her to talk these assholes down!"
With that, the gangster known as Webley slid down the ladder to the tower while the other two readied the rifle, the big barrel of the weapon poking over the tower. The telescope would be used to help spot targets coming in.

Soon, Webley was off. The trip to Minki's residence would have been a lot shorter, were it not for the angry Sidhae clogging the streets, destroying buildings and killing their unfortunate denizens. It was just his luck that he happened upon a small group of them, carrying torches and sledgehammers. Even with four or five of them, rampaging Sidh zealots were not the sort to tangle with.
"Hey," one of them said to his comrades, spotting Webley. "That guy looks like one of the gangsters!"
With a loud cry of "GET THE DEFILER!", the Sidhae charged at him. Not wasting a moment, Webley managed to turn around and run. He didn't have a weapon on his person, but with the speed to be expected of the Greencoat Gang's runner, he didn't need one. Though the Sidhae had strong leg augmentations, they couldn't catch Webley, especially not with their weapons in hand. He led them around a different route to Minki's home, hoping to lose his pursuers in the maze of ghetto walkways, and soon the residence was in sight. However, the zealots were starting to close the gap. Humans tired. Sidhae did not...

Meanwhile, somewhere near Marilova's crash site...

"I must say," Riva said to Marilova. "We've never known someone who has never heard of the Sidhae before, especially someone who looks very much like a Sidh..."
"Isn't the galaxy a colourful place?" Marilova replied. Though she did her best to avoid sounding derisive, it must have slipped free anyway.

"Well, I suppose I'd best explain myself. I'm from a place called Mechanocratic Russia. It's a communist state, or so that's what it claims to be. All the 'mechanocracy' part means is that it's run by an artificial intelligence, in our case it's called 'OTAN'. Technically, it should be called 'OTUN', for 'Optimizirovannaya Transtsendentnost' Uskoreniye Neksus', but it chooses to use the English translation instead, 'Optimised Transcendence Acceleration Nexus'. We got here by attempting to make way to a country that the Mechanocracy is invading, only for the drive to go on the fritz and catapult us here."

At all times she refrained from describing the portal generator in detail, knowing full well that a place where dimensional teleportation technology was most likely totally unheard of would be entirely sceptical of her description and might even dismiss her as insane.

"Anyhow, we encountered a warship, presumably a Sidh one. Our warship got shot to pieces by it, it broke apart, we escaped and now we're here. I'm currently trying to make my way up north, to the crash site, to link up with the rest of my unit after we got separated. I noticed that your buggy has a couple of extra seats. If you could drive me up to the crash site, I could make it worth your while, since you also mentioned that you were looking for scrap. The warship we arrived on is pretty much a write-off, so we'd be more than happy to let you take as many pieces of it as you can carry."

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Aboard Hammer of Thor

"Sir, there's an urgent message coming in from Bayit Gadol Domestic Security precentor!" the comm officer alerted Radec as he and Crassus were listening to the conversation between the two humans and one of the intruder crewmen on the ground.

"What now..." Radec grumbled, "Patch him through to my comm!"

The holo-display on his wristband activated, projecting an image of a concerned swarthy man in Domestic Security uniform in the air before him. The caption under it identified this man as Jamtar Namer, D-Sec precentor of Bayit Gadol. Pretty high office for a convert, Radec thought. First-generation converts could rather easily be recognized by their distinct racial traits characteristic of their original ethnicity - after two or three generations in the Sidh eugenics program, these differences would largely disappear, Sidhae born of convert stock looking much the same as the rest of the Sidh race. This Namer chap looked Indian or something like that, as his exotic-sounding name also betrayed, Radec thought - Sidhae from established bloodlines dating back to the founding of the Imperium typically held names based in Terra's antiquity.

"Ave Imperator, commander Radec!" Namer began, "Your aid is urgently required in Bayit Gadol. A pogrom has broken out in the human ghetto, and we need all available forces to respond. I am requesting to co-opt the services of your marines, seeing how your ship is the only present military force capable to deploy anywhere on the world within 30 minutes."

"Can't your own troops and Urban Security handle this?" Radec grumbled, "I have my own problems to deal with right now!"

"We could, of course, but their response time is slower, and by the time we can arrive in full force, we'll be having a full-blown uprising on our hands," Namer responded and grinned snidely, "Besides, you could use a few favours with us in case those "problems" of yours pertain to certain things falling out of the sky lately."

The man apparently knew more than the obvious. The bow section of a battleship crashing down on a planet was hardly something that could escape notice - the brilliant fireball lighting up the sky, the smoke trail lasting for hours, the pillar of dust and smoke towering over the horizon, the tremors caused by the impact weren't exactly the things you wouldn't notice. But this Namer chap was Domestic Security, which meant he most certainly knew more than he cared to speak of.

"Agreed," Radec said aloud, "Send me the coordinates of where you need my troops. I suppose I can spare a century of marines for the sake of good peace."

"Sir, it seems the female crewmember and the two scavengers intend to cooperate and head for the main crash site with their buggy," Crassus reported as Radec ended his communique with the precentor, "What are your orders?"

"Have the 4th Century currently in orbit make a combat drop on the coordinates provided by Domestic Security. Tell them, of course, that they are being re-assigned to riot suppression duty before you do. Order the 2nd and 3d Centuries to prepare for drop ASAP and secure the main crash site. We wouldn't want our uninvited guests to get their hands on the better part of their equipment, provided any survives, would we?" Radec commanded.

---

Bayit Gadol ghetto

The ghetto was never a serene and tranquil place to begin with, but now that it was being ravaged by Sidh zealots it was pure mayhem.

The market square located just outside the security perimeter surrounding the massive city walls that encircled the Sidh premises was the first to take the brunt of the riot. The rioters had stormed the guardhouse where the control switch for the massive hydraulic-powered armored gates of the fortified Sidh parts of the city was located, overpowered the few guards who didn't expect resistence to come from within, and opened the gates. The ghetto side of the security perimeter, consisting of an empty stretch of land some 30 paces wide and scattered with landmines and sensors, however, was only isolated by a modest fence of electrified barbed wire, serving more to prevent unauthorized build-up and consequent attempts of illicit entry in the city proper, than to hold off a determined assault. Consequently, the second pair of gates in the security checkpoint were ordinary steel bar gates that couldn't hold the raging mob back for long.

The smarter human residents fled the marketplace to alert their families as soon as they saw the main gates open and reveal the Sidh mob behind. The more curious ones stayed around for a bit longer to see if the Urban Security guards on duty would stop them, and that proved their undoing. As the gate creaked and crashed down, the fanatics behind charged into the ghetto with a bloodthirsty roar like a river broken through a dam. Any human unfortunate enough to be caught in this tide of screaming wild-eyed fanatics howling for blood would be instantly thrown to the ground and literally torn to pieces.

"Onwards, brethren! Purge the unclean! Kill the human filth and destroy their foul establishments of vice and sin!" Brother Azariah, standing on a platform carried by his acolytes, bellowed in a megaphone, directing the mob. In one hand, he held a massive thunder hammer - these seemingly-exotic weapons contained a small plasma generator in their heads, generating a potent concussive blast upon impact, amplifying the blow to a thunderous rock-pulverizing discharge capable of killing even armored foes by concussion. A standard bearer marched ahead of his dais, holding up a gilded holy icon of the Emperor.

Azariah's followers embraced these calls with a passion. They broke into nearby pubs and bars, smashing everything with hammers, axes and other implements of destruction, also putting those same implements to the flesh of any patrons found within, so soon the floors of these establishments were running red in blood as flames began to lick their walls. Others broke into brothels. Where that happened, the prostitutes and their clients would soon begin to be dragged out in the streets naked, or more often than not just thrown out the windows. There they were spat upon, beaten and kicked into bloody forms of lifeless mutilated flesh - and they could consider themselves lucky. In their bloodlust, some groups of Sidh fanatics came up with more devious ideas. They would dismantle nearby cars for batteries and give the captured prostitutes a good scrub in their acid. When the batteries ran out, they would drain the vehicles of fuel, soak blankets with it, and wrap the few terrified surviving women and their clients in them before setting them on fire and rejoicing as they ran about the street as living torches, shrieking in agony.

From one such establishment of particularly ill repute, a well-known Sidh official was dragged out half-naked along with a naked boy barely 10 years of age. Seen as just an instrument of depraved gratification by his captors, the boy was quickly put out of his misery by a hammer blow to his head, but his Sidh tormentor would now have to endure much greater pain. After being beaten within an inch of his life, he was crucified to a makeshift cross, hoisted above the crowd and paraded about, expletives and descriptions of his crime being carved into his own flesh with knives. A sign saying "I am a pervert who fornicates with underaged human filth of my own sex" was nailed prominently above his head, while words like "degenerate", "paederast", "scum" and the likes were carved in his flesh. Numerous other Sidhae caught in various decadent acts ranging from severe drunkenness to torture-rape of abducted victims in dungeons specializing in this sort of service would suffer a similar fate - while their lives were spared, the shame and ridicule they would face with their vices exposed would be a hardly better fate.

There were a number of churches in the ghetto, erected by it's Christian residents. Their bells now started to ring, alerting the inhabitants of danger. Many would gather what possessions they could and flee, others would arm themselves and lock away in secure locations. Since it was Saturday, a number of pious Jewish residents would cry and wail about their meager possessions being doomed to destruction, and yet not lift a finger to save them, staying true to their religious obligation of abstaining from any work on the Sabbath. Those who were fortunate to have understanding neighbors were helped to evacuate at least some of their valuables.

In other places, vicious fighting erupted as gang members and ordinary folk seeking to protect their homes engaged in gunfights with the zealots, many of whom had various firearms. Soon, the entire ghetto rang with gunfire and explosions, pillars of smoke rising from burning buildings.

---

Emperor's Mercy Hospital
Bayit Gadol ghetto

"Aunt Minki, aunt Minki, I drew a picture for you!"

"Again? You are such a great artist, Leni!"

The little girl named Leni, no older than seven, was handing her latest work to a Sidh woman she and the other children were calling their "aunt". The picture showed them both and the other children holding their hands in the sun-lit garden of the hospital, with dark and dilapidated ruins full of armed men with angry faces outside the fence, all depicted in the scrawly drawing of a child.

"Do you like it?" the girl asked eagerly.

"I like it very much, Leni. Thank you," the Sidh woman patted the girl on the head.

Mikaela Angelos, the head and community leader of Emperor's Mercy Hospital, was endearingly known by Bayit Gadol's human residents as Minki. A stunningly-gorgeous woman even by the high Sidh standards, she could have easily made a career by starring in various propaganda videos, and yet she had instead chosen the difficult path of a Word Bearer.

Mikaela had spent much of her early life in service of the Imperium on the battlefield, a white scar marring her otherwise flawless features remaining as a memento from those days. Like all who would be called upon to serve as Word Bearers, she too had held a zealous belief in the Emperor's teachings. In many respects, she still did - it was precisely her profound faith in the Word that had led her to reside here in the ghetto. However, over time Mikaela had grown profoundly disillusioned with the ways the Word was being interpreted and implemented these days. The Emperor, being the greatest conqueror of all time, had never called for one bit more brutality, abuse or injustice than was absolutely necessary to secure victory or maintain peace and order, whereas these days oppression and mistreatment of the innocent and defenseless was the normal order of the day, justified as vengeance for some age-old slights. This inconsistency between the Word and the deeds of those who preached it had led to Mikaela's split with her more orthodox brethren.

Mikaela belonged to a minority of Word Bearers, who believed their ministering was best directed at those who needed it the most - not at fellow Sidhae, who had already embraced the Way, but at humans, who had yet to see the light of the Word. She was also firmly convinced that the present way her kind treated their human subjects was contrary to the Word and in no way facilitated the spread of Emperor's teachings to the rest of Mankind. Minki somewhat rightly believed that humans would be more inclined to embrace the Word and the Way when introduced to them with acts of mercy rather than cruelty, by a gentle and patient shepherd rather than an armored warrior-monk with the soul of a hangman. Many of her more zealous brethren deemed Mikaela a heretic for these beliefs, but without a formal judgement from the Chapter that had granted her the title of Word Bearer, her opinions were just as valid as more orthodox ones under law, and any physical action against her would not be left without serious repercussions. While her views were deemed borderline-heretical by Domestic Security as well, the authorities had no reason to act either, since she never criticized the Sidh ideology and ways, and was in fact an ardent promoter of them, albeit in an unorthodox way.

Consequently, Minki and a handful of other like-minded Sidhae had moved to the ghetto at great personal risk and expense, securing a fortified compound and starting up a hospital that also served as an orphanage, school and homeless shelter. Though greatly distrusted at first and repeatedly subject to threats and even open attacks, Minki had since managed to earn the respect of the human populace, her facility being a beacon of light and hope in the otherwise bleak and meaningless existence of the ghetto. Even the suspicious authorities grudgingly approved of her operation after it managed to recruit more converts in a single month than the official recruitment efforts had in the last few years.

Minki looked at the girl's picture and sighed. This girl, Leni, had lost both of her parents to gang warfare. There were around two dozen other children living on the compound, all having similarly-tragic stories. There was a mute boy, who had lost his faculties of speech after being abducted by one of the gangs and rented out for rape and abuse to various perverts. There was another girl, rescued from a similar fate in one of the ghetto's commercial dungeons by Minki's direct intercession that involved a gunfight with the dungeon's guardians. Several other kids had lost their parents to gang warfare, violent attacks by bigoted Sidhae. Others had been orphaned after their parents had been abducted by gangsters to be sold as slaves, or worse. Mikaela never ceased to be amazed at the children's capacity for forgiveness - she was a Sidh, one of the kind responsible for many of these tragedies, and yet the children did not hate her, they did not hate Sidhae in general like the adults did.

Truth be told, Minki had been compelled to face a lot of moral dilemmas in her operation here. She sincerely wanted to stop the gangs and their criminal enterprises that led to much of the suffering within the ghetto. Having been a soldier and having ample experience with making tough choices, she had determined it was best to remain on good terms with them even if it meant giving up some of her moral principles. Minki realized she simply did not have the power and means to save everybody that needed saving, and so made compromises and concessions to save at least some. Consequently, the gangs left her and her wards alone, and she didn't meddle in their affairs in return, at least openly.

While Minki and her ideas conveyed an impression of pacifism, nothing could be further from the truth. After all, this was still the ghetto, and she was still a Sidh living in one by choice. While the hospital was a tranquil safe haven amidst a sea of squalor and misery, it needed protection if it was to stay that way, and Minki had just the necessary skill set to ensure it did. While the residents of her compound had renounced violence, it meant by no means that they would not defend themselves or fail stand up for a righteous cause if need be.

"Madame, there's a man at the gates begging to let him in," Minki's comm buzzed as she examined the girl's picture, "He says he'll be killed if we don't!"

"Well, then let him in!" Minki instructed, "And keep an eye on him, I'll be there shortly!"

[Blakullar]

Emperor's Mercy Hospital, Bayit Gadol ghetto, Scatach Prime.

As the gate opened, Webley squeezed his way in as fast as he could. Just as the gate shut with a clang, the Sidh group that had been pursuing him reached the hospital, ploughing into the fence.
"Bah!" one of them cursed aloud. "There's no way we're getting in now!"
"I beg to differ!" another one, armed with a sledgehammer, replied. "I'm goin' in over the fence!"
"Are you insane!?" the first said. "Do you have any idea who lives he--"
Before he could finish his sentence, the Sidh had already scrambled over the gate and landed on the other side with a roll. The doorman who had called Minki rushed out to try to stop him, but all he got for his trouble was the handle of the sledgehammer to his face, knocking him aside.

Just as the Sidh caught up to Webley and raised the hammer above his head to strike the gangster down, his eyes drifted upward and he found himself staring down the glowing barrel of a plasma shotgun.
"Go ahead!" the surcoat-clad young woman whom Webley immediately recognised as Minki growled at the zealot. "Make my day!"
Close by, the thunderous sound of marching Sidhae could be heard over the grumble of gunshots and the occasional crack of an explosion...

Meanwhile, at the Cauldron...

"I got my eyes on the big kahuna!" the gangster manning the tower's telescope said to the sniper next to him.
"Where is he? I'm gonna take his fuckin' head off!" his comrade responded. "Gimme a distance!"
"One and a half thousand metres!"
Just as the sniper trained the Istiglal onto Azariah and gently tugged on the trigger preparing to fire, a clanging sound close by caught his attention.
"What in the he--"
His interrupted question was soon answered by a bullet piercing the scope, taking the sniper's eye out and killing him instantly. The shooter responsible quickly ducked below a barrel, but not fast enough to hide the glint of his weapon's sight from the spotter.
"MORE SHITHEADS COMING THIS WAY IN FORCE!" he yelled down to the gang below. "WE LOST OUR SNIPER!"

As if by way of confirmation, gunfire erupted from cover positions further down the street. The road was already littered with a few corpses from previous attacks, some from Sidh offshoots of the main attacking band, others of rival gangsters. Some of the gangster bodies were from opportunistic opponents of the Greencoats seeking to exploit the chaos to get the upper hand, others were simply attacking in desperation after their establishments were devastated by the Sidh marauders. This was the biggest attack yet, however. What was also obvious was that these were no Sidhae, as soon determined by the clothing that they wore as well as the weapons used. The attackers were armed with submachine guns, shotguns, large-calibre pistols and - if the sniper's demise was anything to go by - at least one rifle.

The Greencoats quickly returned fire with their own weapons, killing a few close by. Many of the Greencoats' weapons were Federation surplus smuggled in with the help of Freelancers and very limited assistance from the Sidh authorities themselves, but there were a few old weapons being fired. Some of them looked like they would have seen service in the armies of old Terra, not least the Istiglal on the tower as well as a handful of M16s and MP5 submachine guns. The defenders had also turned an old KORD machine gun against the assaulting gang, the high-calibre bullets tearing through anything foolish enough to try to pop out of cover.

Hopelessly outgunned, the first wave was shot to bits with ease. There was a brief lapse in between the shooting, with the faint sound of a remote-controlled car emerging above the distant noise of chaos...
"GODDAMN IT! HIT THE DIRT!" one of the gangsters on the ground shouted. Suddenly, the machine gun nest was devoured by a sudden explosion, putting the KORD and the two gangsters manning it out of commission. Moments later, more enemy gangsters arrived, a bigger wave than before, armed with several assault rifles and bladed melee weapons.

There was a whistle as a rocket flew over the Greencoats' heads and smacked into the biggest cluster of attackers, scattering body parts and debris with an explosion. Another blew up a house at the other end of the street where a sniper had made himself known, showering the area with bricks, pieces of wood and corrugated metal. That seemed to deter the invaders, with the riflemen having turned their tails and fled. The brawlers, however, kept attacking, and were promptly shot apart by a wave of rifle bullets. One of the gangsters had a magazine emptied into his chest just as he clambered over one of the sandbag barricades with a machete. His bare arm featured a prominent skin-carving that formed an image of a pair of snakes coiled around the blade of a knife.

"Fuckin' Sikos," the nearest Greencoat to the body uttered. The 'Sikos', a derogatory term for 'Sicarii', were the Greencoats' main rivals in the Bayit Gadol ghetto and were of a similar strength. Formed by a splinter group of the orthodox Jewish community, the Sicarii gang took their name from an ancient order of assassins. Their elites carried knives and other bladed weaponry with them, being forbidden from using firearms, and were inaugurated by having the emblem of the gang carved into their arms with a knife as a test of endurance. They were also known for their use of crystal meth and other hard drugs to induce a bloodthirsty rage, intended to heighten their combat abilities and intimidate opponents. The rank-and-file of the Sicarii were nothing like that, however, many of them being ordinary men and women seeking comradeship and security, like the majority of the Greencoats. Until this point the Sicarii had maintained an uneasy truce with the Greencoats, but with the sudden onset of the pogrom, they had evidently tried to use this opportunity to weaken their enemies.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Emperor's Mercy Hospital
Bayit Gadol ghetto

The intruder dropped his hammer and slowly backed up with his hands raised, cautiously looking at the woman in Word Bearer attire standing before him, pointing a plasma shotgun at his face. He had heard tales of a heretical Word Bearer living in the ghetto and helping the human scum, and would now witness their veracity for himself.

"I strongly suggest you remove yourself from my premises. NOW!" Minki sternly said with barely contained anger.

"It's the heretic Word Bearer..." whispers ran across the crowd outside the gates. Meanwhile, the stricken doorman stood up, clenching his bleeding nose, and opened the gate just enough for the unlucky intruder to leave the premises, helping him out with a kick to his backside. Though the zealots could have seized the opportunity and stormed the place, nobody made a move - although their numbers would have allowed them to overpower any resistence, nobody wanted to be the first to find himself on the receiving end of a plasma shotgun in the hands of a Word Bearer, who had in all likelihood seen more than a decade of frontline service. Also, striking a Word Bearer went against the deepest convictions of most in the mob, unchanged by the fact they regarded her views to be heretical - without a formal judgement and excommunication, Minki was still fully entitled to preach the Word as she saw fit, and remained under protection of Imperial law.

"Sister Mikaela Angelos!" a shout from behind the gathering mob came, the crowd parting to give way to Brother Azariah. There he stood, clad in Word Bearer robes spattered with blood and brains of slain infidels, his mighty power hammer dripping in their blood, flecks of human hair still stuck to it's head. His acolytes, clad in hooded robes, looked equally sinister and murderous, also splashed with blood and wielding bloody knives, machetes and clubs, just finished beating and hacking apart some unfortunate visitors of a porn cinema - despite the availability of digital downloadable media, such establishments were still popular, because the content of electronic devices could be tracked by the authorities, resulting in potential problems. Brother Azariah had personally indulged the mob's bloodthirst by performing executions of some of them, using his mighty hammer to pulverize first the limbs, then the genitals, and finally the head of his victims while his disciples held them down.

"That is correct. And I have the honour of speaking to Brother..." Minki responded, unaware of the speaker's name.

"Azariah Carron. Your reputation precedes you, Sister Mikaela, and I cannot say I am impressed to see you reside in this filthy den of debauchery. That being said, however, I hold no ill will towards you or your misguided beliefs. Hand over this infidel who is cowering before your feet, and we will leave your and your establishment be!" Brother Azariah spoke.

"Brother Azariah," Minki snidely answered, "Although I haven't heard of you before, which apparently means you are a newcomer to this world, I must say I am equally unimpressed with your barbarous and vile idea of spreading the holy Word. This man has humbly asked me for asylum, and seeing no quality in him that would disqualify him from it, Word and Way obliges me to honour his request."

"This man is an unbeliever," Azariah angrily exclaimed, "He is one of the human filth that spread decadence and corruption to our kind as well as his own! While I couldn't care less what foul depravities he and his ilk indulge themselves in, he is a gang member and thus complicit in spreading the festering disease of vice to our glorious society! For that he must die!"

"I will be the judge of that," Minki said in response, "As to his lack of belief in our ways, the only real unbelievers I see around here is you and your mob of thugs!"

"Heresy!" an angry whisper rolled back and through across the crowd, while Minki continued.

"Yes, it is you, and not the humans who lack strength of faith and moral fibre! The humans do not realize the error of their ways, for they must yet witness the light of the Word, but you who call yourselves Sidhae do, and yet keep acting in the worst habits of your unenlightened brethren! If you are so morally superior over them, and your faith in the Word is so strong, why is it that that you feel compelled to kill them to protect yourselves from their vices? Is it not your own lack of moral fibre to resist their temptations that drives you to such barbarous excess?!"

"You of all people should keep your mouth shut about barbarity, Sister, for the scar on your face speaks volumes about your own virtue in this matter! You as well as I know how people like ourselves earn the right to wear the mantle of Word Bearer!" Azariah shouted back.

"True, but unlike you I know how to wear it true to the Word!" Minki replied, "I speak His Word! Call him thine enemy while he does ye harm, and spare no effort to destroy him, but make no more enemy of him after he yields, for mercy is a sublime virtue!"

"Ave Imperator!" the mob exclaimed as was customary upon hearing "the Word spoken".

"I speak His Word!" Brother Azariah responded with a quote from the Word of his own, announcing it with the customary invocation that the sacred Word of the Emperor was about to be spoken, "Know no mercy upon him who seeks to corrupt virtue and pervert justice!"

"Ave Imperator!" the mob exclaimed again.

"I speak His Word! Beware the coward, for he will abandon ye in peril, beware the ingrate, for he will strike your hand that feeds him, and beware the complacent, for he will squander what is bought in blood, but above all beware the hypocrite, for there's as little in his heart as there's much in his words!" Minki found yet another quote.

"Ave Imperator!" the mob shouted.

Apparently the last quote had struck a sensitive string in Brother Azariah.

"You would accuse me of hypocrisy, when your own deeds reek of it?!" he bellowed, "I have in no point contradicted the Word, for my hatred of sin and corruption is heartfelt and true, and I bring righteous fury upon those who would spread it, while you, sister, huddle here amidst infidels and sinners yet speak sanctimonious words about righteousness! Which in my eyes makes you no better than the vermin you consort with!"

"Heresy! Kill the heretic!" shouts erupted here and there from the crowd, and the angry mumble amidst the mob began to grow. Minki and her few Sidh companions readied their weapons - it seemed like a fight was inevitable.

---

An instant later, the area between Brother Azariah and the compound fence was rocked by a violent impact, kicking up smoke and dirt just as the air was rocked by a sonic boom followed by the distinct roaring descent of an orbital drop pod. The pod impacted square in the midst of the mob, crushing several unlucky fanatics beneath it and violently tossing aside many more. The petal-like doors bursted open, and from the cloud of dust and smoke emerged a decury of fully armed and armored marines, as the Navy insignia on their armor indicated. More sonic booms and the telltale descent sounds when the pods reached subsonic velocities and fired their retro-rockets to slow them down to survivable touchdown speeds rocked the ghetto.

"Citizens, you are in violation of Criminal Code Article 705.1, "On Riotous and Antisocial Activities"! Cease and disperse immediately, or we will use lethal force! I repeat - cease and disperese immediately, or we will use lethal force!" the decurion leading the marines declared on the loudspeaker built in his helmet.

The zealots wasted no time and scattered, dragging along their wounded. Crazed as they were, they still had the sense not to tangle with a decury of marines, not when they asked nicely - because everyone knew Imperial authorities and especially the military never asked twice.

"Talk about last-second saves..." Minki's doorman remarked at the sudden resolution of the situation.

"I have the feeling this isn't over yet, not by a long shot," Minki stated, lowering her shotgun, "But let's find out what our unexpected guest is here for first."

[Blakullar]

Emperor's Mercy Hospital, Bayit Gadol ghetto.

Webley listened to the two Word Bearers argue with each other using quotes from their holy book. He never understood the Sidh religion that was called 'the Way'. Other religions of old spoke of omnipotent, immortal deities with the powers to shape worlds and destroy infidels in an instant. This Emperor that the Sidhae worshipped, however, was just a guy, no different from anybody else other than his status. It reminded him of a place called 'USSR' he had read about in some texts about the history of old Terra. There the people deified their leader too, even though he didn't do much to earn such respect. Though maybe he was a god in the same respect as the Abrahamic gods. He had heard of a disastrous event called the 'Holodomor' - he reasoned that this was a case of 'smite the unbelievers', just as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was. However, one of the Sidh religion's most ardent preachers had saved his life from the furious mob outside. He hadn't been taught by Minki, having been a runner for the gang for most of his life, but he immediately got the impression that this woman might just take care of him.

Soon, he was being asked by Minki about why he was here.
"I was instructed to come here to warn you about the incoming pogrom," he answered. Only a handful of other gangsters knew Sidh as well as he did, but since he was part of a network that maintained contact between the ghetto and the outsiders beyond it, knowledge of the Sidh tongue was essential. "I apologise for being the focus of this little mess. My name's Marco Webley. It's true, I am a gangster, as the green coat I'm wearing should denote. But I've never picked up a gun in my life, I swear."

That was a lie, since every Greencoat was taught the basics of how to use a gun when they were enrolled into the gang. Webley had no idea how well-known this fact was, but he figured that he'd at least make some effort to win Minki's favour. She had, after all, just prevented him from being stomped into a pile of flesh by an extremely angry mob of Sidh fanatics.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Emperor's Mercy Hospital, Bayit Gadol ghetto

Minki smirked slightly when the young gangster before her swore to have never touched a weapon before, but said nothing. This was the ghetto - even a 10-year-old kid here knew how to handle a piece, much less an adult gang member. Here, kids either grew up very fast, or didn't grow up at all. Apparently, this chap simply deemed it would be safer if the Sidh before him believed he was no threat.

"I see," she said, "Since the circumstances of your arrival already demonstrated that there is an ongoing pogrom in the ghetto, I gather that you are eager to hear what my answer will be."

"Yes," the man who had introduced himself as Marco Webley said.

"You can tell your boss that my doors are open to all wounded and homeless as usual, irrespective of race or allegiance. My only conditions - all weapons and personal feuds stay outside that gate," Minki spoke, "But first let's treat you to something to eat. The marines outside should have dispersed the riot enough for your safe return by the time you are done."

Gesturing the young gangster to follow, Minki walked off to the mess hall. One of her acolytes followed behind Webley, subtly keeping a watchful eye on him - although this was a recognized institution of charity that refused nobody in need, this was still the ghetto, so some caution was always due. Sometimes people would try to sneak in to steal things, on other occasions their intents were more malicious, and experience had taught Minki and her companions to be cautious, but in a manner that would not scare off those in genuine need.

On the way to the mess hall, they were walking past a room where another Sidh woman was instructing a group of children in martial arts. It didn't take an expert to realize that these kids were receiving such instruction on a daily basis, obvious from the way they moved.

"For someone with a reputation of a pacifist, you sure maintain a militant education program for your children, madame," Webley remarked.

"We in this hospital may have renounced violence as a means of getting our way, but that doesn't mean we embrace weakness and passivity," Minki explained, "You of all people should know how harsh a place to live can the ghetto be. All of these kids were hurt terribly when I took them in, and I am seeing to it that they will not be hurt again. I will not be able to protect them forever, nor should I, but I can give them the tools and skills to protect themselves with."

They continued down the hallway, the walls of which were adorned with a peculiar mix of pinned-up children's drawings and various obscene graffiti and gang tags remaining from a time when this building wasn't yet a hospital. In another room that looked like a classroom, a different group of children were seen tinkering with some advanced electronic devices, another of Minki's acolytes instructing them. They took a turn to a different hallway that was a part of the actual hospital, and Webley noted there were also some children among the mixed Sidh and human staff.

"Madame, you seem to involve your wards everywhere," Webley remarked.

"Everyone here, young or old, has a job to do," Minki stated, "Without everyone contributing, this establishment could not function. Besides, the children seem to like a break from the studies every once in a while."

Finally they arrived in the mess hall. The kitchen was in plain sight, only a counter separating it from the rest of the hall, a huge, gruff-looking muscular Black man in chef's attire distributing meals to any who came to eat, checking their names in a checklist and carefully seeing that nobody was served more than others. In one corner of the kitchen, Webley noticed a bunch of unhappy kids sitting around a huge pile of potatoes peeling them by hand.

"This is Eliah, the lord and master of our kitchen. He used to run with the Eightballs before circumstances brought him here and gave his life a more constructive purpose," Minki responded to Webley's inquiry, "The rascals peeling the potatoes there are being disciplined for various infractions. Eliah, would you serve one for our guest, please?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the cook replied, swiftly filling a bowl of what appeared to be potato-and-pea broth with smoked bacon.

"Aunt Minki, can we go, please?" one of the punished kids complained, "Our hands are already raw and there's still so many potatoes!"

"And who is going to peel them in your stead? Maybe next time you will think before breaking the rules," Minki declined, her tone somewhat reminding Webley of a strict but kind mother.

As he sat down to eat, eager to finish and get back to his gang with word from Minki, Webley couldn't help but wonder why a Sidh of rank and status would ever leave the comfortable life in the Sidh quarters and settle down here in the ghetto, and asked about it.

"The Emperor, praised be His name, was human before becoming what He became, and we Sidhae are all fundamentally still human too, something that a lot of Sidhae tend to forget these days. The great Emperor rose and unified Mankind out of love for humanity, and even when the majority of Mankind rejected his teachings and cast Him and his followers out from old Terra, He still retained that love and sought to become Mankind's protector from without," Minki explained, "He made great and terrible sacrifices in order to bring all of Mankind together and ensure it would spread out to the stars and survive under any circumstances against the foul alien scourge. He would have never approved of His children and disciples treating humans they way they are being treated presently, so I am here to make it right, to show my stray brethren that humans are no different from us, and will gladly embrace our ways if treated with patience and kindness rather than cruelty."

"So all this is ultimately about converting these people?" Webley inquired, "And what if these children and human adults here refuse to convert?"

"Then that is their choice, and I am sure they will come to realize the benefits of conversion eventually, when more and more humans realize that conversion is not something to be feared, something that will take their humanity away and make them into soulless monsters many believe us to be. Despite our augmentations, we are still fundamentally human - we can still feel all the same emotions as ordinary humans, in fact even more intensely than ordinary humans, we can still love. Or hate, as the actions of some of us today have demonstrably attested," Minki spoke.

"Still, embracing a life of military discipline and solitude, without any personal freedom, children or family hardly sounds like a tempting offer, even if it comes with great power and agelesness," Webley countered.

"Your outlook on these things is very narrow, and you are not to blame for it, for you have had no opportunity to look at things otherwise," Minki said, "What really is this personal freedom you speak of? Is it the freedom to choose your ruler - from a pre-approved list of candidates who all are ultimately on the same payroll of the same mega-corporations, like it is in the Federation? The freedom of a slave to choose his own master does not abolish the division in masters and slaves. How different is your kind of freedom from ours, if you are still bound to wake up every day at the same time and spend the day toiling away in the factory or office for someone else's benefit in order to scrounge enough to pay your bills, and keep doing this for years and years until eventually your health fails and you are discarded like a spent battery, in a retirement home if you are lucky, to spend the rest of your remaining days waiting for death without a meaning or purpose, your own children being too busy in their toil to bother visiting you? Is your human freedom really so different from our supposed lack of it, if you are still a slave to the system, your collar and shackles being loans and bills, and the whip that drives you being your alarm clock? Is it the freedom to do what you please that is so attractive? What freedom is it, really, to poison yourself with whatever crap you please, to fuck anything with an age of majority and a pulse, treat everyone and everything like an asshole if you fancy so, ruin the lives of those around while doing so? The freedom to be a usless parasite whose existence is detrimental to everyone and everything around him?"

When Webley did not answer, Minki continued, "The Way offers true freedom - the mastery of one's desires. He who sees the shallow trivialities of life for what they are shall never be tempted by them, and never suffer disappointment because of it. That is the essence of being a Sidh, something that many of us have forgotten or misunderstood. That answers, I think, your question about our attitude to freedom versus discipline. You ask how we can live without children or families - but what really is family? Is it not a group of people you feel close to, a group of people you love? We see ourselves as part of the greatest family in the galaxy, an entire race related not by blood, but by faith in the same ideals. And there are many more smaller families we can yet be part of. My family, for example, are the people of this community. And if siring children is that important to somebody, then it is all the more the reason for him to convert - within the eugenics program, our children are numberless, and while we may never see them or know they are of our blood, the knowledge that our bloodline survives and thrives, that our biological imperative is fulfilled, fills our hearts with warmth. Not to mention all the benefits of great strength, expanded consciousness and senses, agelesness and freedom from illness, and everything else that comes with conversion. I want to share that gift that the exalted Emperor gave to all Mankind, and hope to convince the skeptical and fearful of it's benefits with my actions here."

"I see," Webley remarked, finishing his bowl, "You have been a most generous hostess, madame, and I thank you for your hospitality, but it's time for me to go and deliver your answer."