DC Next Proudly Presents:

The Linear Men

Issue Twenty:Family Reunion
Written by Dwright5252
Edited by Predaplant

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The Waverider
When she was growing up, Deirdre Harkness often thought about how things might’ve been different in her household if she had an older brother to take the brunt of her father’s attention. How her path through life could have been vastly different, her rap sheet a little more… non-existent.
Now that such a brother seemingly existed, albeit from another Earth altogether, she was starting to realize that maybe she was fine being an only child.
“Listen, this’ll go a lot faster if you stop being so obtuse, Deirdre,” Owen Mercer scowled, twirling one of his razor-sharp boomerangs deftly between his fingers as he paced the deck of the Waverider. Deirdre sat in the hot seat, the Linear Men staring at her on one side while her current and former romantic partners stood on the other. The multiversal children of Digger Harkness faced off in the middle, neither seeming to want to give any inch in their argument.
“Look, I’m just sayin’ I’d be able to find my friends better without some drongo stealing my schtick,” she responded casually, moving to take a boomerang of her own from her bandolier before remembering the new time cops had confiscated all her weapons. “Surely Jenny Sparks has someone better to send along.”
Was she being difficult? Absolutely. Was this petty argument preventing her from saving her missing teammates? Undoubtedly.
Did she want to take this pretender down a peg? You know it.
“Perhaps we can arrive at some kind of accord, beloved,” Ystin interjected, placing a hand on Deirdre’s shoulder. “I understand how jarring seeing this knave must be, but our comrades in arms are lost to time. Other priorities must take precedence.”
Sighing deeply, Deirdre fell back into the chair behind her, irked that this modified timeline removed all the progress she’d made in molding the chair to fit her form. She could see Liri wince at the force she had used to enter the chair, and felt a little bad about that.
God, she could be selfish sometimes.
“Fine. Fine, I’ll be a good sheila now. What is your plan, oh fearless brother o’ mine?” She felt the tension in the room let up slightly, and Ystin gave her a grateful smile.
Owen pulled out another boomerang of his and started pressing the buttons on it. A projection appeared, seemingly the timeline they were currently in. Biting back her instincts to make fun of her brother’s projecto-rang, she sat back and listened as he began to point at the timeline. “As you can see, this is the current stream that we’re in. You can see these discolorations,” he explained, pointing at the shades of red appearing in the mostly blue timeline, “that indicate the anomalies you’re normally after. Sure, they aren’t the best thing to have appear, but it’s within the Time Masters’ range of acceptable aberrations. From what Deirdre is saying, the kind of anomaly we’re looking for with this situation, with one team seemingly erased from time and another fully resurrected, should be lighting this up like a Christmas tree. That massive of a ripple effect from those changes would unmoor us into the Bleed, never to return.”
“But we’re clearly still here,” Rip Hunter said, scowling. “So you’re saying she’s full of it.”
“Not necessarily,” Owen replied, and Deirdre felt a slight pang in her chest as her brother came to her defense. He dialed in another setting and another hologram appeared, this time showing various circles floating around the timestream. “What do you know about time bubbles?”
Michael raised his hand, ever the teacher’s pet, apparently. “They’re basically pocket dimensions separated out from the timestream. The Time Masters use them sometimes to isolate threats to the stream or conduct experiments.”
“Gold star to you,” Owen said, and Deirdre rolled her eyes as Michael beamed. She missed Booster so much. “Yes, exactly that. So let’s say that these bubbles,” he circled a majority of them, “were made and accounted for. We’re left with a good dozen unsanctioned by the Time Masters.”
Deirdre’s hopes started to pick up before Rip dashed them. “But that’s also within parameters for a timestream. Nature abhors a vacuum and makes time bubbles naturally to fill in any blank spaces that appear. You’re grasping at straws.”
Owen turned toward the captain of the Waverider. “I’m sorry, did you want to run this presentation? I can go back to the Authority and leave y’all to your issues if you want.”
Before Rip could respond, Liri stepped in. “Rip, let the poor boy explain. You’re being an asshole.”
Deirdre blinked, surprised at Liri’s interjection. The AI she knew would never put the captain in his place like that. And even more shocking, she saw Rip pull back and motion for Owen to continue, clearly chastened by his crewmate.
Miracles did happen.
“You’re correct, the other bubbles not highlighted are indeed naturally occurring.” Owen pointed at them and expanded them. “But someone with enough access and know-how can commandeer these time bubbles and manipulate them for their own uses.”
Matthew Rider raised his hand. “So you’re saying our missing people could be inside these bubbles? But what about the damage to the timeline from removing them in the first place?”
“Good question. Like I said, this level of fuckery to the order of things should’ve made things completely unravel. That being said, it is possible for someone with a high degree of chronal knowledge and access to do it. It’d be damn risky, as one mistake could spell disaster. But… it's becoming more and more evident that whatever’s responsible for this isn’t an amateur.” Owen pulled up a blank file now, a glaring DATA NOT FOUND flashing in front of them. “You say you all saw Walker Gabriel vanish, and still have memories of him. He’s not in our databases anymore, and there’s not even a void left behind where he should be. This thing took him out and plastered over the timestream to remove any trace.”
Silence fell on the group as the idea of what they were up against sunk in. Deirdre pondered who or what could hate them enough to do something like this.
“So what’re our next steps?” Liri asked, typing away furiously at her datapad. “Should we search these time bubbles for our missing teammates?”
Deirdre smiled sadly as she heard Liri refer to her friends as teammates. This version didn’t even know these people, didn’t have any definitive proof that they even existed, and yet she took them in her heart as part of the team.
Owen shook his head. “That would take too long, and might tip off whatever’s doing this to our plan. We need more manpower for the search and a way to narrow down the field.” Roxy Rocket, who’d spent the entire conversation vlogging the control room with her camera, piped in. “Sciency stuff isn’t really my bag, but could you maybe look for people that interacted with these folks and trace them that way? Use their memories to bridge the gap or whatever?”
To Deirdre, it sounded like the kind of stupid thing that just might work. “I know someone that might be able to help us with that, and I can get some people together we could use.”
Hub City, Illinois
Something was wrong, of that Violet was certain.
Their journey had led them across the globe when they’d felt it happen, felt the universe attempting to steal another memory from them. Violet fought against the overwhelming vibrations that tried to steal the memory of their friend from them, using their powers to shield their mind and their heart. It took everything they had, rendering Violet unconscious for a day. But when they awoke, they still remembered Michael Jon Carter, Booster Gold. The first person in Violet’s memory that tried to help them.
It felt fitting, going from trying to discover their past to helping bring their friend back from oblivion.
The problem was, nothing was working.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daniel Carter asserted, shifting on his crutches as he tried to close the door on Violet. They held their hand out to stop it, and felt fear trickle through Daniel’s aura.
“I do not mean to startle you, I am just trying to find some answers,” Violet explained, backing away from the door to give Daniel some space. “I know it sounds strange, but I am telling you only the truth.”
“Look, I wish you luck in… this whole thing you’ve got going,” Daniel said, “but I don’t have a clue about any future relatives of mine, whatever the hell that means. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for a job interview.”
This time, Violet allowed him to slam the door in their face. It was no use. It seemed anyone they’d attempted to contact didn’t have any memories of their friend. Violet knew that if they could only use their aura to show Daniel the true way of things…
But no. That would be a trespass they were hesitant to employ. There had to be a way to bring Michael back without hurting anyone. They would find it, they were sure of it. “Well, if it isn’t the most colorful person I know,” a familiar voice said from behind them. Violet turned around to see Deirdre Harkness approaching them from across the street. Unconsciously adjusting their hijab, Violet ran towards their former teammate and enveloped her in a tight hug.
“You are truly a sight for sore eyes, Deirdre,” Violet said, tears running down their face as they took in their old friend’s presence. “I could really use a friendly ear at the moment. I feel as if I have gone insane.”
Deirdre pulled back from the hug to look Violet in the eye. After a moment of searching, she smiled. “You remember, don’t you?”
Violet’s eyes widened in shock and joy. “Tell me you are not humoring me. You truly remember our friend?”
A wave of relief washed over Violet, and it was all they could do to keep their aura in check as Deirdre spoke. “Not only do I remember Booster and Rip and the others, but I think I have a way to get them back.”
Radiance, Pennsylvania
Living in a mansion wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. For instance, the amount of upkeep required to keep it from becoming a dusty mountain of sadness was just completely unrealistic for one person to do. That meant hiring people to help maintain the grounds, sweep the floors, clean the bathrooms and bedrooms.
Mitch Shelley was not a fan of people.
“No, I said not to make the topiary look like a Soder Cola can,” Mitch insisted to his groundskeeper, an older man whose proximity to loud saws all his life made him hard of hearing. “It looks corny as fuck.”
The old man shook his head. “I think it looks fine, sir. Plus I know your corporate sponsors will appreciate it for that gala you’re holding next week.”
Goddammit. Mitch had been dreading that stupid party ever since he’d been asked to host it in honor of his latest sponsorship campaign for the Soder Cola company. Sure, he wasn’t too involved with the planning (at least, when he could dodge the phone calls and house visits of the party planner he’d hired) but it still took up way too much of his time. That wasn’t to mention the fact that he had to attend the thing.
In a suit.
Ugh.
“Maybe you’re right. Thanks, Joe,” Mitch said, handing the groundskeeper a generous tip. Joe was probably the most down-to-earth of his employees, and he wanted to make sure he was taken care of. Joe shook his hand appreciatively and walked out the door, brushing past a red haired woman dressed garishly in some sort of costume.
“You’re a week early for the gala, darlin’,” Mitch said, waving her away as he tried to escape to his theater room. “I’m sure whatever skill you have will be enough to entertain the suits coming to this shindig.”
“Har de har, asshole,” the woman said, her Australian accent giving him pause. What was an Aussie doing in Pennsylvania? “I’m actually here for Resurrection Man. Need his help.”
Mitch sighed, “Look, I’m sure whatever cat’s stuck in a tree will get itself out. If this is about Lazarus, tell that fucker he can come and face me himself rather than sending his new sidekick.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you. You’re a wild horse that can’t be reined in. You need adventure in your life, and I’m here to offer it. Ever time traveled before?”
Mitch stopped on the steps. “In a manner of speaking. What did you have in mind?” Maybe he’d hear this woman out. If anything it might last long enough to get him out of this fucking party.
Opal City
“Stargazer tipline, how can we help?” Jack Knight was surprised when the old phone line started to ring. Courtney had been right; most people used the app to ask for help. He’d almost forgotten the tipline was a thing, and it had startled him into dropping his tools as he worked on another upgrade to the Star Staff. His father’s laboratory made the ringing sound like it was coming from all over, so he’d almost missed the call when he couldn’t find the phone buried under all the schematics.
“Hello Starman, long time fan, first time caller,” a voice said from the receiver, the accent telling him this wasn’t an Opal citizen. “Need your assistance in a caper.” He was tempted to hang up the phone; no doubt this was some kind of crank call. “What’re the details of this… caper, ma’am?” He’d humor her for a little bit. Jennifer and Courtney had been on his case about crunch culture and making sure to take breaks, so maybe this could count as his allotted rest period.
“First off, I think I’m younger than you, so shove off with your ma’am,” the woman huffed. “Second, this isn’t a joke. Why don’t you come out of your little work shed and see what I mean.”
The line clicked, and Jack looked at the phone in confusion. What a weird call. There was no way anyone knew where he was at the moment, so he chalked it up to someone having a laugh at his expense. As he picked up his blowtorch to continue his welding, the intercom buzzed.
“Jack, can you please come up here and tell these yahoos to get their spaceship out of my backyard before they wreck my azaleas?” Jack heard his father’s voice resonate through the speaker. He jumped up to look at the outside cameras, and sure enough, there floated a spaceship of some sort.
He pulled out his phone and texted into the All Star Group Chat. “Hey, gang. Might need to be out of the city for a bit on a mission. I’ll keep you posted.”

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As a veteran of HD1 and the first galactic war I am absolutely appalled at the state of the game’s current arsenal. There are some fun and unique weapons here and there but most of them just feel redundant or terrible. Nowhere is this more visible that the AR, SMG, and DMR lineup. Here is a rework I’m proposing to high command ti ensure we are given proper tools to ensure the safety and spread of managed democracy.
Gun Rebalance and additions ARs Class Role: Rifles are designed to put holes through targets, and they need to reflect this role better. All rifles with Light penetration have been upgraded to be Light armor defeating. This means that while weapons with Light AP will damage light armor, they won’t always fully damage it. While rifles with light armor defeating fully negate light armor and deal full damage to it.
Liberator, 65DMG, Excellent ergonomics, the best weapon for firing on the move, +1 mag Role: Extremely easy to control and ideal for new players or veterans looking for something reliable. Capable of 45/45/4.5/ delivering 45 rounds at 45 meters in 4.5 seconds on target with no effort. Lore: High command has started production on upgrade kits for our standard rifles to improve it’s handling. Liberators now come with a vertical foregrip and a new muzzle brake to better control the weapon.
AP Liberator, 70 DMG, +5 rounds, Slower reload, 23 recoil, bad ergonomics, Uses AR scope Role: This Frankenstein of a gun is not for new players, uncomfortable recoil, and unfriendly handling in exchange for uncompromising stopping power. Terrible when firing on the move, with significant muzzle climb. But it provides rapid armor-piercing fire to those who can control it. Lore: The Penetrator started its life as a converted liberator modified to better penetrate armor. However there was no standard for how this would be achieved, so the conversion differs from regiment to regiment. Typically it involved sawing off a diligence barrel and converting it into a squeeze bore to increase velocity at the cost of terminal ballistics without using new ammunition. High Command has now realized the potential usefulness of a standardized conversion for its service rifle. Fabricator schematics have been published for new components and manuals for a consistent conversion. As part of project Ironbreaker, an initiative to outfit soldiers with better AP weapons, Production has begun on a variety of new ammo for the weapon which is much more powerful. The new 5.77mm Talon round generates 3x more chamber pressure than the liberator. The weapon itself has a new chamber and a properly machined barrel, made from surplus diligence rifles. The new AP liberator is also outfitted with a standard rifle optic, Punisher pump grip for a vertical grip, 35 round magazine, and a grey and red color scheme to denote its new changes.
Adjudicator, 90-100 DMG, 720 RPM, 30 recoil, Burst fire, uses the DMR scope Role: Battle rifle, Ideal for long-range combat, Semi-auto for small targets or precise shooting, Burst fire for large targets or close combat. Sluggish ergonomics but surprisingly controllable. Lore: Designed to replace liberator rifles on specific fronts where armored enemies are more common, the adjudicator was met with mixed success. The weapon proved to be reliable, powerful, and accurate but failed to fully replace the liberator in an assault rifle capacity. However, the 17th Helldivers regiment came up with a brilliantly effective modification. The outfitted the weapon with a reciprocating barrel shroud and a burst fire mode to turn the rifle into a long-range killing machine. With a surplus of Adjucator parts piling up from the weapon’s failure, High command has made this modification the new factory standard for all Adjucator rifles. The added weight and complexity in exchange for what has been reported as a 50% increase in accuracy seemed to be a fair trade.
Tenderizer, 840RPM, 75-round drum, 12 recoil, 4 mags, Terrible reload, Okay moving accuracy Role: IAR, ideal for laying down sustained fire on targets, can mow down multiple targets quickly. Low magazine count and high RoF make this weapon prone to running out of ammo. Lore: A new development to supplant the more expensive and time-consuming liberator rifles for SEAF army troopers, the Tenderizer was an unwelcome addition. It was heavier, bulkier, and awkward to handle. However, the increased bulk made it easy to control during sustained fire and it was very reliable under this strain. Troops began jury rigging drum magazines to use it as light machine guns. With a sizeable surplus of the liberator’s 5.77mm ammo, High Command began testing a designated IAR (Infantry Automatic Rifle) variant for helldivers use. This variant was an instant success providing individual hell divers with team-level firepower in a rifle-sized package.
Blackout(New), 85DMG, 420RPM, 24 round mag, 8 mags, superb moving accuracy, Silenced Role: Ideal for stealthy missions, the blackout deals very high damage at close range, while enabling the user to remain undetected from nearby patrols. Not effective vs armor Lore: Developed for Blackguard operatives, the Blackout is an integrally suppressed rifle created in response to the rising automaton threat. Veterans of Maevelon Creek petitioned High command to develop a new rifle, able to quietly eliminate bots while still being effective against devestators.
Yari(New), 45DMG, 1400RPM burst, 900RPM salvo, 36 Round magazine, 10 mags, AP Role: Prototype rifle with lightweight Sabot ammunition, fires a 3-round hyperburst and a 6-round salvo. Exceptional ammo efficiency and power at range lacks close combat ability.
DMRs(Classwide rework) Role: DMRs are designed to put rounds where rounds need to go while also being able to be used alongside assault rifles in a firefight. In Helldivers DMRs take an unconventional role of being viable against light target while alos enabling the user to defeat larger enemies like devestators and bile spewers at long range. To start, DMRs have a new bonus, DMRs deal +75% extra weak point damage (Headshots) and deal 10% more damage per point of AP they have over the target region. So they do extra damage if they hit the soft unarmored bits as well as on headshots. They also receive 50% less recoil while prone to better provide accuracy at range. DMRs are for the methodical sharpshooter who prefers to pick off targets at a distance instead of charging in, rewarding careful positioning and shot placement with heaps of dead foes.
Diligence, 120-140 DMG, 22 Round mag, 30 recoil, 8 mags, Full auto mode, Silenced Role: Starter DMR that delivers high damage at long range while keeping the user concealed. Silencer isn’t as effective at close range, but great for staying hidden during firefights. Lore: High command has witnessed the substantial failures of their DMRs and has issued a complete recall of the weapon. A brand new receiver and chamber system has increased its muzzle velocity by 500 feet per second, greatly increasing lethality.
Diligence CS, 175-200DMG, 18-round mag, 6 mags, Staggers on full damage hit, Thermal optic Role: This more demanding variant of Diligence rewards more precise shooting with higher damage. It is better at stopping large targets but is less effective at picking off enemies. Lore: as part of the Ironbreaker initiative, many weapons are being issued new nitro ammunition. The diligence CS has undergone a more extensive upgrade. A new barrel and chamber designed to maximize lethality with the new ammo has greatly increased stopping power. The CS can stop devastators, bile spewers, berserkers, and similar targets with just a few hits. It has also been outfitted with a thermal sight to see through fog, sand, gas, and smoke.
Retribution(New), 275 DMG, 8 Round mag, Bolt action, Rounds reload, Silenced, AP Role: Longest range DMR, remarkably quiet and powerful, ideal for dropping large targets and protecting teammates from range.
Wyvern(New), 110DMG, 360 RPM, 26 Round magazine, 8 Mags, AP, Full Auto capable Role: Assault DMR, designed to be used aggressively at close range while permitting the user to provide long-range support.
SMGs (Classwide rework) Role: SMGs put holes in targets, not through them. SMGs have been largely replaced by Rifles in modern warfare, the same should apply to Helldivers. This shouldn’t make the useless, but instead good at different things. SMGs should be suited to personal defense and reliability under a wider variety of circumstances than rifles. SMGs have classwide damage nerf to reflect their lower caliber and have very noticeable damage falloff. However, they get a buff in every other area, with the most notable being that each SMG carries 12 mags instead of 8. SMGs are still capable of dropping larger targets with one mag, and with their lower recoil, they can reliably do so. But are now better suited to protecting the user from groups of weaker enemies.
Defender, 40 DMG, 720 RPM, 5 recoil, 12 Mags, Lightning fast reload Role: User-friendly and economical weapon, very easy to use. Less power than assault rifles but puts rounds where they need to be. Lore: The original Defender SMG was actually a failure, being prohibitively expensive to produce both the weapon and its ammo. Although it was a very popular weapon during peacetime, the demands of the war have made the defender a rare sight. To ensure that SEAF forces had a reliable weapon for CQC, the Defender A2 has been put into production. High command has changed its standard handgun cartridge from the .43 Hawk Tungsten core AP round to the cheaper 8mm FMJ round. The new defenders have an increased rate of fire and are more controllable but lacks the stopping power of the original.
Knight, 35 Damage, 900RPM Full auto, 1300rpm burst, 8 Recoil, 12 mags Role: PDW, Delivers a torrent of rounds quickly and accurately. Burst fire is ideal for mid-range enemies, full auto puts down groups of lightly armored enemies. Lore: The A4 knight variant features an electrically operated feed instead of a gas-operated one. This has enabled the weapon to fire at a more controllable rate in full auto while preserving medium-range accuracy with a 1300rpm hyperburst. It has also been outfitted with a less powerful round that is lighter and more economical, improving total ammo carried and recoil control at the cost of stopping power.
Shinobi(New) 50 DMG, 540RPM, 25 Round mag, Silenced Role: Spec-ops SMG for quietly dispatching groups of unarmored enemies. Less effective than other options in a firefight but perfect for sneaking around
Sweeper(New) 40 DMG, 800RPM, 80 Round drum, 8 mags, terrible ergonomics Role: Space Tommy gun, this weapon is designed to put as many rounds as possible down range as fast as possible, where said rounds land is irrelevant. Ammo hungry but very mobile.
I am aware these changes are extensive and won’t likely be implemented. I don’t believe that every weapon should be OP or god tier, but they should all have some niche where they really excel. Have a nice day and good luck Helldivers.

hey,
so i hover around in this community. i dont post a lot, i usually lurk. this is also not meant to be taken as a conjecture post, it wasn't designed for that, nor is it that.
this post is warranted, particularly because i've spent quite a hefty amount of hours learning to hone bullshit-filtering methods with disseminating stuff related to NHI and other high strangeness, and as such, i can confidently say i know what i'm doing and where i stand. i've researched these kinds of topics on and off since i was 12 years old (i'm 24), and have seen this place degrade in its ability to process and disseminate information as it grew. but this loss of ability to do so is not my main focus for this post; it is metainfo, and that belongs in /ufosmeta, not here.
my main focus is on greer's recently released intel archive. i was privy to the thread that alerted me it was up, so i went digging through it.
yes, a lot of it is junk. a lot of it is also illustrations, but labeled as illustrations as such in its filenames, which people were quick to ignore when they began commenting. some of the commenters were more than likely disinfo or skeptic bots, as they're very prevalent here in the background (protip: check the karma of every single account that posts something negative or dismissing, and if it's <1,000, immediately ignore it), but there were also a few genuine people who were either unhealthy skeptics, or fooled by the negativity and had their opinions shifted.
here's the sauce, boss: you can be a grifter on occasion and still build a large web of contacts and POCs, all of whom can naively give you good shit - opsec is not foolproof, and the oft-repeated phrase in cybersecurity et al especially is "that the best security is knowing that there is no security, only delays". POCs are persons of contact, and they essentially act as middlemen for you to get to other people. greer has them and uses them, grifter or not, but we'll get back to that in a second.
there are real gems in there, chief among them is a 28-page witness list filled to the BRIM with entries. there are approximately 780 of them, and at least ~55-60% (429-468) are from high ranking or influential people. hidden away within this list are colonels, former DoD contractors, family members of military brass men who have witnessed their confessions on their deathbeds, and just about every other kind of witness testimony you can find. here's some particular ones i chopped off that i enjoyed, particularly note the bottommost one.
there's also some nifty schematics for various aerospace plant/installation layouts, as well as some useful documents hidden beneath the more garbage ones, plus some patents filed through the uspto (the federal government's trademark and patent office).
all of this is information you people could've dug through for genuinely valuable tidbits, and several of you chose not to - instead, you made fun of the mockup sketches and illustrations people made, as well as concept arts (which yes, all of them looked goofy, but could've easily been looked past if good information was valued by many of the people scouring the site). as parents say, i'm not angry at anyone here for it, only disappointed, and if i had to take a wager on something, the people in these actual programs (in america anyway, russia and china have their own) who want stuff to come out are probably also disappointed or miffed. this place has 2.3 million people, but that doesn't mean there can't be self-organization with people here.
please dudes, take your time and be more thorough when a new trove of information comes crawling along. you all make fun of people like mick west, which is fair game, but you can't make fun of people like him and then proceed to enact some kind of holier-than-thou model of skepticism for yourselves to process info. you need to sit down and really, truly think about boundaries for what is and isn't plausible, regardless of whether or not the matter covers NHI, exotic physics, metaphysics, philosophy, etc (you get the idea, i could list more categories). you need to think about what is and isn't suitable proofs for particular matters, and if half-proofs can be used to assist your own journeys in a few of those particular manners in question, without putting the stability of the discourse surrounding some of those matters into jeopardy.
y'all need to step back and start also thinking about what info is commonly distributed, uncommonly distributed, and rarely distributed. where did it first come from, and who did it first come from? are there multiple people constantly climbing on board and validating it? when weighing the good, bad, and awful things the alphabet agencies have done, is it within their scope to allow any of the matters brought into question to have proceeded?
you should be asking these things, all of these things, in silence to yourselves, and looking for the answers as you go along investigating whatever exotic stuff and high strangeness you find. i know you all hate the idea of turning what is fun and flashy into what is essentially a bunch of chores and repetitive lines of research, but i posit to you an ideal of sorts: if you had one of the intelligent beings at the end of all of this plunked down in front of you, and they were of one of the so-called benevolent types, what would you do in talking about the functions of the universe? would you try asserting our own high physics as it stands, in an effort to learn more? or would you instead gather your own humility inside of you and begin thinking about useful questions to ask the being from a level of our physics down at grade 12?
because let me tell y'all, i've seen a lot of you who would choose the former when you should be choosing the latter, and you're shooting yourselves in the foot in the process. for an extension of the metaphor - walking with bloody feet is messy, painful, and unnecessary, especially when the people in question could've easily done a few things to prevent it (this is not including the fact that the being in question will have some things about physics that cannot be easily taught or shown on a basis of nature).
as for me, i'm not lampooning people here out of some morally superior sense of ego. i'm lampooning them because i feel bad and want them to be better and improve with the matters discussed above; because i love them as people. that's it, that's all there is to it.
so please, think a little more when these troves of information come out. take your time - time can be your greatest ally and your worst enemy, but for this, it is the first of the two. and most importantly, have a good day :) ❤️

(After finishing NOP1 and reading a few fanfics I've decided to give writing one myself a try! This is my first time posting a fic like this, so please let me know what works and what doesn't. Thanks to SpacePaladin for creating NOP and to my girlfriend for helping me by proofreading this!)
[Next]
Memory Transcription Subject: Elder Researcher Slira of the Vyr Exploration Initiative
For as long as Vyr have recorded history we have known that the ice above us stretches on forever and that there was nothing beyond. This was truth.
Yet it is in our nature to question impossible truths, for time and currents erode even the most solid foundations. Once we believed the Black Abyss would only ever be certain death to Vyr, and yet now a city sits at its lowest point, admittedly populated by religious madmen who worshipped the greatest horrors any Vyr has ever known.
Still, it was thanks to pioneers like them that I now sat curled up at my desk many kilometres above my home, within the first city ever built atop the ice of Rime, tapping away at a keyboard that commanded a distant drone soaring through the unimaginable void of Space.
To be honest, I was terrified. Flying through space felt like swimming over a deep rift, not knowing what was hiding in the darkness and if it was eyeing me up like some kind of tasty treat. My excitement overpowered my fear however and I chastised myself for humouring ideas better fit for a sci fi novella. A monster wasn’t going to suddenly pop out and eat the drone, the sensors would pick it up long before getting so close. If there even were monsters that swam between the stars looking for things to eat, which seemed unlikely.
As I grabbed a handful of snacks from a packet on my desk my computer beeped angrily at me. A message complaining about an odd energy spike. I huffed in annoyance as I tried to find the source in the sensor data. I swear if this was another ice geyser eruption that got through the exclusion…
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I noted the strange white object in orbit around our neighbour planet, Turqo. It hadn’t been there a moment ago, and it never appeared on any of the previous scans we did around the planets. Surely we would have noticed it in the three months of studying the odd blue planet with 5 drones, 15 operators always watching the feeds, 100+ scientists studying the data officially and thousands more amateur astro-physicists and casual observers going over our findings every day, right?
No, it had just appeared, loud and blaring energy signatures we barely recognised. I scanned its shape and could come to only one conclusion.
It was a ship. An alien ship.
My colleagues started panicking over the comm channel as they too noticed the sudden appearance.
“What is that?” asked our geologist Dersan. “My drone is picking it up all the way from the surface, what in the abyss…?”
She was interrupted by our astronomer Seshan, voice filled with panic. “Huh? Where did that come from!? Celestial objects don’t just blink into existence!”
The poor dear was very anxious which made it a wonder why he decided to get into astronomy of all things, staring at the great open void all day…
My drone’s sensors pinged as it recognised a new signal coming from the alien ship. It… it’s sending out what were clearly communication signals towards my drone! We were being hailed!
Despite the adrenaline and scattered thoughts running through my mind I quickly set up my workstation for broadcast, making sure everything was still being recorded. First Contact! My mind buzzed with all the possibilities, theories proven and disproven in a mere moment! What would they be like? A small, selfish part of me hoped they liked audio dramas. I shook my head to clear my thoughts, checked to make sure I was presentable (scales all clean!) and established a connection.
A strange white creature appeared on my screen, incredibly fuzzy and with a long thin tail that ended in a puffy ball. They reminded me a bit of a few slugs my brother likes to keep as pets, though I quickly pushed such thoughts away. It wouldn’t do to compare sapient creatures to common animals. Still, something seemed odd to me. Not about the creature itself, but everything around it…
Almost immediately their little black eyes seem to double in size. The alien spoke, seeming a bit agitated at first but then getting progressively calmer as they continued. Suddenly it dawned on me what was so odd about it.
There’s no water! Does this alien not need to breathe?
I did my best to muster my voice and reply. “Sorry, I can’t understand you. Let me try something…”
I sent over a little stream of binary data, a small message to say hello mostly to convey I could hear them. They sent one in response, though I could make no sense of it.
The alien chittered excitedly and clicked away at a keyboard frighteningly similar to my own. His tone becomes slightly agitated, and then soft and… demure? Suddenly my console was awash with data, right before the alien squeaks something and waves a paw. Before I could react the alien ship became a blurry streak and disappeared once more, making me question if what I saw was even real.
However the messages from my colleagues were very real, and so was the data packet on my computer. As a precaution I quarantined it, my mother’s warnings given to me when I was a young pup to never trust data transfers from strangers ringing in my ears. I flicked them with annoyance and took a peak at the gift the alien gave us.
Inside were schematics, blueprint, a lot of files filled with what looked like code and a star chart with some marking on it. I recognised an anatomical diagram of the alien I had just seen, alongside instructions for some kind of chip. It looked like it was meant to be installed at the base of the neck. That along with pictures of strange creatures I didn’t recognise, seemingly talking with each other…
Oh! It’s a translator! I quickly forwarded the packet to my colleagues, the research facility’s main server and to our friends in the engineering department. Despite not knowing their language or even who they are, the aliens have sent us a clear message and the tools needed to solve the former problem!
-][- Fast Forwarding Transcription -][-
It took us a week, but we finally did it! Working together and setting aside all other projects we managed to get a working prototype of the Alien Language Translator working on one of our supercomputers. Technically the program could fit on a far simpler device but I couldn’t resist the urge to be a bit dramatic and almost no one had ever criticised my flair for the theatrical. All that was left was a last-minute test against some of our own languages to make sure it was working properly.
All of Vyrkind was abuzz with the news that alien life was confirmed to exist! Prominent reporters were interviewing any astrophysicists or xenologists they could get their hands on, administrators were discussing expanding our elevator that cut through Rime as well as building new ones and even the Second Church of the Abyss was joining in on the dialogue, even if it was to put forth new weapon designs meant to function in space. “To help put the newly discovered demons of Braru in their place” they explained. At least they were excited about something other than living in absolute darkness, I guess…
I grabbed a snack packet from the facility’s cafeteria and swam as quick as I could to the auditorium. Almost everyone was here, curled up in the seats or huddled up into groups and excitedly discussing what we were about to see.
I picked a seat as close to the front as I could get, eyeing the large screen we had rolled out for the occasion. I opened my packet and couldn’t help but sample some treats before the show began. I didn’t have to wait long before a technician gave the greenlight and the recording of my rather one-sided conversation with the alien played for all to hear.
“An arxur! Get us out…! Wait, their eyes… they aren’t forward facing. Oh! This is a new prey species! Hello?”
“Sorry, I can’t understand you. Let me try something…”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand… what’s this? Oh, a transmission! That gives me an idea! Here, let me send you instructions on how to make a translator, along with a message for when you finish it.”
“I am Captain Deffin, a member of the Sivkit Grand Herd. Me and my kinsmen were hoping to scout out a small mining venture here, but it seems you already have a site operating in the system, so that gives you a claim over it I imagine. Still, maybe we can come to an arrangement! I’ll be back in [1 month] with some more members of my fleet so we can open diplomatic negotiations!”
“Oh gosh, your ships are so small, you must be even tinier than we are! I don’t know how big your civilization is, but stay away from those stars I marked on the chart! The Sapient Coalition resides there, a horrible farce of an ‘alliance’ created by the evil, meat-eating humans as a way to easier enslave prey like us! So many of our friends lost because they thought they could trust predators…”
They wave their paw
“Farewell friends! Stay safe and stay quiet, we’ll speak again soon!”
The transmission ends, leaving us all in silence.
For a moment the world hangs still, and I swore I heard a bubble pop somewhere. It didn’t last long though, as my colleagues burst into furious dialogue and confused rambling about the implications of the alien’s message.
I myself stayed silent and looked down at my snack packet, proudly branded as “100% genuine Fish Flakes! Free Range!”
Uh oh…
[Next]

S-V: Echo-01
Blaze looks around the halls of Echo-01 as he walks towards the bridge to assume command of the ship. As he walks down corridors. he can't help but feel a sense of awe.
The walls hum lightly, and the faint scent of ozone hangs in the air.
The hangar outside abuzz with activity as the Titanic sized spacecraft is prepared for it's first faster than light trials.
As Blaze approaches the massive bridge, he notices the advanced technology integrated into every surface. The control panels seeming to pulse with the hum of the ship.
Looking closer he can see the complex algorithms running in real-time.
The former captain greets him at the entrance on his way off ship. "If it isn't the demon slayer in the flesh. Sad to say. Noone to fight like you're used to but should still get your heart going.... Good luck out there."
Blaze chuckles. "Yeah, not really my type of thing. It's a mission tho. Earth's been quiet enough that they sent me here..." Blaze's sleek almost paper thin wrist strap like device chimes. "Oh... Gotta cut it short. It was nice seeing you again Jack." He says as they nod before parting.
A gruff man greets him as his conversation finishes. "Welcome aboard. I trust you're ready for this historic journey?"
Blaze holds out his hand catching him off guard.
Taking his hand the man smiles. "Well, they did say he was different." The man thinks as they shake.
Blaze nods, his face a mix of determination and excitement. "Ready or not, it's a new thing for me. 10 minutes to launch.... Let's get this ship moving." He says moving to the command seat, his fingers dancing over the keys with a practiced ease. The hum of the engines increases, and the ship begins to vibrate slightly. After a few minutes a warmth passes by like a phantom filling the area.
The comms come to life as the new quantum systems keep the ship connected to HQ.
Blaze takes control of the ship, feels it respond to his touch on the flight sticks. The sensation of power surges through him as he manipulates the various thumb touch controls for sensors and guides the Echo-01 into its maiden voyage.
Tho he is quick to notice that everyone had left the hanger rather quickly.
Exiting the moon base's hanger through its cold plasma field Blaze angles the ship toward the first checkpoint. "Ok, warp core control, power for. 20% light speed and slowly bring us up to reach 50%. Keep an eye on the warp core. If it goes smoothly transfer control to my console but monitor closely. If things go bad it's my hand they can blame."
The crew exchanges surprised glances as they go about their duty
Several minutes later the ship is 20 million miles from the moon staying on it's dark side. Blaze watches the controls intently, his eyes darting from one readout to another. As he navigates the ship through space, he can't help but feel a sense of responsibility for the lives on board.
The journey so far uneventful he knows that they are venturing into the unknown.
Pulling back the warp core power output the ship slows and Blaze pushes a few commands on his console. The computers start to survey the sky with sensors and optics, it's images and data putting hubble and JWST to shame in mere seconds..... A clear path being calculated prior to the warp attempt.
The A.I finishes its calculations, and the ship's systems go into standby mode. Blaze takes a deep breath, his hand resting lightly on the left flight stick a moment.
He turns to address the crew, his voice projecting on the intercoms clearly throughout the ship.
"Alright everyone, It's time. Just awaiting the go ahead from HQ." The crew members, who had been silently observing Blaze's movements, nod in unison. There's a sense of anticipation and nervousness in the air as they await confirmation. The ship vibrations seem to intensify as seconds tick by.
The ship wide comms break the humming silence. "Project Echo has the green light. Commence warp to the Alpha Centauri star system." Blaze nods, his fingers dancing across the console. Grabbing the controls he pushes the left stick forward.
The ship shudders slightly as the warp bubble forms around it, distorting the space-time continuum as a disorienting sensation washes over them.
Blaze holds up his hands feeling as if a flowing magnetic cushion surrounds his body. "So that's what 1 sun's worth of pure energy per second feels like burrowing through dimensions we can't reach... No wonder so many didn't want to be in charge. I'll take this over explosions and combat."
He looks out at the simulated stars streaking past as the ship accelerates towards its destination.
Despite the disorienting feeling of the warp bubble, there's a sense of awe and wonder that fills him. "This is it, the beginning of humanity's journey into the stars." He thinks looking over at one of the researchers...
Just 4.5 seconds later they arrive at Alpha Centauri.
The ship arrives in the triple star system as it waits silently glistening in the star speckled yet engulfing darkness of space. Dropping to the star systems velocity, the ship sheds it's warp field with an anomalous burst of energy.
Proxima Centauri 8 light minutes away reacts to the strange burst of energy as it continues at 1.5 lys per second without the ship's warp core.
Blaze looks at the star through the filtered windshield as its deeper layers are exposed to space bursting into space.... "Well, that's a new in.. oh hey, what you do today... Oh nothing just blew up a star and ruined part of the night sky.... Oh no..." He thinks... "That was like a sonic boom so... What's behind us?" He wonders.
"Scanners to the rear immediately." He orders.
Looking at the quantum sensors he sees the first burst losing energy and speed rapidly till it vanishes. As the crew stares in awe at the incredible sight before them, he calmly navigates the ship towards its designated arrival location.
20 seconds after arriving, suddenly an alarm goes off on the console. "Incoming radiation of 3,000 Exaelectron volts." The ship's A.I says just as the high energy wave passes by and dissipates.
There's a bright flash and intense heat that's gone in an instant.
Blaze feels around as he keeps calm. Every person on the ship blinded by the flash. Blaze turns to the bridge crew, his voice calm yet urgent. "Stay put until we can assess the situation. Looks like we've picked up some unexpected cargo. A.I analyze the radiation."
The ship's systems kick into high gear as the A.I begins to process the data from the radiation scan.
Blaze shakes his head. "Are we even alive right now.... Cause 3000 exa electron volts... Most powerful to hit Earth was 340 or so and that's millions of times more powerful than a particle accelerator..." He says out loud as his vision begins to return.
Blaze steadies himself. "Echo 1 schematic view, damage report." He feels himself say but barely hears.
A schematic view of the ship appears on the console, showing no visible outer damage. The internal damage report at first confirms that all systems are online and functioning within normal parameters but one.
As his hearing starts to recover he can make out the ships A.I.
"Alert. Increase in heat emissions from the engine core...." It pauses calculating... "Suggested course of action, complete core shutdown and reactivation."
Blaze sits back in his chair as the whole bridge looks his way.
A woman with short red hair and almost glowing gold brown eyes moves over to him. "So we fix the core." She says.
Blaze sits forward. "Jane, are you trying to be a smartass. Cause you know that takes... Opening the warp core containment to stop it's energy production... With a device that is back on the moon, 4.2 light years away...."
Blaze looks at the rest of the crew, their faces flushed and sweaty from the intense heat of the radiation wave. The ship's cooling working hard to return the temperature to normal.
He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves as he considers their options while Jane storms off going to her quarters and Blaze sighs.
"One thing at time." He says as another alarm sounds... "Uh... And I can't even shoot anything." He thinks.
Looking at the schematics it zooms in on several small modular sensors around the ship that shorted out during their idle test phase.
"You're joking right?... Of all the sensors, we lose the forward facing quantum scanner's..." He says tossing his stress ball.
The A.I responds. " I lack software for humor and sarcasm." Blaze sighs.
He looks to the side viewing window at the star in the distance and the nova expanding from its location. "Okay, let's get to work," Blaze says, rallying the crew. "We have a ship to fix and a mission to complete. We can't afford any more setbacks."
Finishing the meeting quickly he sits in his seat.
The crew, now fully aware of what's needed they spring into action. Blaze watches as their focus on repairing the damaged sensors and readying the ship for its next mission impress him.
He takes a moment to himself, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes as he tries to clear his mind. After a few minutes he decides to walk the ship and finds himself standing at the observation window looking into the warp core without realizing it.
Just then Jane steps beside him. "What is it anyway?" She asks looking at the pulsing sphere of energy.
He lets his forehead rest on the window. "No clue. All I know is it's some kind of element. 115. Usually unstable but the aliens that helped design it gave the ability to stabilize and use it." He says.
Jane looks at the warp core, her eyes narrowing as she contemplates the magnitude of the energy being contained within the small sphere. "So it's like a power source for the ship's warp drive. Pretty impressive tech, if you ask me." She says....
Blaze looks at her. "Why are you being like that?" He asks. Jane shrugs, a small smirk playing on her lips. "I'm just saying, it's cool. And we get to use alien tech to make this ship go faster than light. That's pretty damn cool if you ask me." She replies, her tone lightening up a bit.
Blaze sighs. " Just stop. What's your issue with the tech this time?" Jane rolls her eyes. "Nothing, I just think it's kind of neat is all. Don't get your panties in a bunch." She says with a playful smirk.
"Fine, whatever," Blaze replies, waving her off dismissively. Her expression grows more serious. "Not like it's doing the same thing I said it would or anything. You were one of my biggest critics so.. should I have to tell you."
Blaze draws in a breath... "There are several things missing. If you were right, it wouldn't be so calm in there. Besides your gut feeling. Isn't gonna find what science couldn't."
She glares at him. "Fine, don't listen to me." She says.
He's about to respond when she hands something to him and walks away. For a moment the warmth of core is overpowered as a chill runs through him and his breath catches in his throat.
He looks back at the warp core, thinks of all the secret missions and tests as he slips the ring into his pocket.
The test ship Echo-01 continues to hum along, the warp core pulsing with energy as it powers the ship's systems. Blaze stands by the window, her words still echoing in his ears. He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves before continuing his work on the ship.
Re-entering the bridge he sits in his seat as he ignores the crews odd behavior.
As Blaze sits there, he feels a slight vibration beneath him. He looks around, noticing that the crew members are acting a bit off, their movements stiff and unnatural. A cold sweat forms on his back as he realizes what might be happening. Closing his eyes he calms himself. "Mark, to the bridge... To assume command immediately." He says over the ships comms.
Every one in the bridge looks back at him in surprise. Mark, a seasoned captain, strides confidently onto the bridge, his eyes darting around as he takes in the situation. He moves swiftly to the central command chair and sits down, his hands moving deftly over the controls. "Report," he barks out, his voice stern.
Another crewmember approaches Blaze as he exists the bridge to head to his quarters. "Sir, are you ok... Its. It's just odd given your history with Mark." The man says.
Blaze takes a deep breath and nods. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little on edge, that's all. Thanks for the concern." He replies, trying to dismiss the crew member's concerns....
...
...
As he enters his quarters, he can't shake the feeling that something isn't right. As he lays back on his bed his mind swims in a deep, dark dread and pressure....
...
...
Jane looks from her station to Mark. "Simulation of the Abnormality in the core room." She says as a hologram appears and she hesitates a moment.
The scene of the square viewing room as her and Blaze stand outlined by the sensor data.
Pressing play they all watch as she walks away out of the sensor range. The warp core energy stable, until... A mass of energy breaks away blasting into the viewing room surrounding Blaze. . . .
Blaze's eyes fly open, his heart racing as he quickly sits up, his mind struggling to make sense of what he's just seen.
"Was it a nightmare or a memory?" He shakes his head, trying to clear it as he stands up from the bed.
Just as he steps towards the fridge to get some food, he stumbles falling as the world goes black..... The lights flicker back on, lying on the floor. His eyes dart around, disoriented, as he tries to make sense of what just happened. . . .
"Get a medical team to my Father's quarters, now!" he hears Mark's voice bark out over the intercomm.
Blaze feels a cold sweat break out on his forehead as he tries to push himself up off the floor, but his body refuses to cooperate. Struggling to breath, his heart racing as he stares up at the ceiling.
The medical team arrives within moments, rushing into his quarters.
They kneel down beside him checking his vitals and scanning him. "Sir, can you tell us what happened, can you hear me?" One of them asks, concern etched on their face...
...
...
Sometime later Blaze is resting in the medical wing of the ship as the crew tries to figure out what the issue is.
The head medical officer steps forward. "I've run several tests and... I would have to say it's radiation sickness. But there are strange differences with what we normally associate with radiation." Dan says.
Blaze opens his eyes slightly, listening to the doctor's words. He feels a wave of relief wash over him as he realizes it's not something more serious. But the mention of strange differences makes him sit up straighter.
"Can you explain what you mean by 'strange differences'?"
They all turn to Blaze... Dr. Dan scratches his head. "Well. There's the first oddity, no cellular damage, the second is that your brain is full of activity that's hard to study. The electrical activity is all over the place. Our system can't even pin down what's causing it... and the most odd thing... That same activity is all throughout your body and seems to strengthen slightly over time. The only logical explanation is that... Your strengthening your entire neurological system. Which makes your lack of motor functions puzzling if true..." he says
Blaze frowns, trying to process the information. "So... you're saying this radiation is somehow enhancing my neural activity and strengthening my neurological system?" he asks, his voice tinged with disbelief. "And yet, it's also causing me physical impairment?"
Jane stands near the doorway for a moment then goes back to her station.
As Blaze processes the information, he realizes that this is indeed an extraordinary situation. He wonders if there's any way to harness this strange power for the betterment of humanity. But for now, he focuses on his recovery. "Thank you, Doctor. I'll do my best to rest and recover." Seeing Jane as she goes off to the bridge he feels ashamed.
Doctor Dan pauses moving over to the monitor. "What's making this here go up like that?" He asks noone in particular.
Blaze sighs, his thoughts focused on the situation with Jane. He tries to sit up a bit straighter, his muscles protesting the movement.
Dr. Dan, turns his attention to a monitor, frowning as he studies the readings. "Blaze whatever it is you're doing or trying to do. Stop it and calm down.... it seems another oddity has manifested. That extra energy in your nerves. Increases in its accuracy to the..." he pauses thinking outside of the medical field." Resonance with your normal impulses..." He says.
Mark looks at the doc as Blaze gives him a confused look. "And that means what when it matches?"
Dan shrugs. "That's the thing. I have no idea... But.... Jane might..." Blaze glares at him shaking his head. "No! Uh uh. Leave her out of this." He says.
Mark agrees with Blaze. "Moms smart but some of her ideas are way out there and nothing ever comes out of her experiments...." He turns to go back to leading the ship. "You better pull through whatever this is dad." He says.
Blaze lays back as his son goes back to the bridge...
Dan puts a hand on his shoulder. "You should get some rest while I run a few more tests. Would you like a sedative to sleep?"
Blaze shakes his head, the movement causing him slight discomfort. "I'll be fine Doc. Just let me know if there's anything else you need from me." He tries to sit up more, but his muscles protest, forcing him to lie back down.
"Actually, yeah. Sedative would be nice." He says changing his mind.... . . . Jane stops her son in the hall. "Nothing comes from my experiments... Nothing?" Jane stares at Mark, her eyes narrowing. "You're wrong, Mark. Sometimes, the strangest ideas lead to the most groundbreaking discoveries. And who knows? Maybe this time will be one of those times."
Mark sighs. "Look... I know me and Dad don't always support you in things. But this. This is important... Remember 5 years ago that odd radiation in the rat?"
Jane nods, a small smile appearing on her face. "Of course, I remember. That was how we discovered the potential for harnessing energy from dark matter. And it led to the development of our current warp drive technology."
"Well, this feels similar. Something's happening to Dad. I wasn't there to see your testing but I read about neurological effects. The rest was redacted."
Jane pause as she's about to turn away. "Wait. That... That's not possible..." As Jane studies the data more closely, she begins to realize that it's not just a coincidence. The numbers and readings match up perfectly with this strange anomaly she's been studying.
"Mark, come here. You need to see this."
Jane leads him to the lab where she's been running her tests. "Mom you know youre not supposed to be doing that stuff anymore on mission." Jane waves him off dismissively. "I know, I know. But look at this."
She pulls up a holographic display of the data she's been collecting. The patterns and readings are complex, but there's no denying that they match up with the neurological changes happening to Blaze. Mark follows her back to the medical wing as she walks briskly. "So, what happened to the mice?"
She stops. "Some turned to pure energy, some melted, others decayed. The ones that didn't eventually died to..."
Just then Dan appears looking confused. "I had just put him under and turned around for a moment to ready a scan and he. Just wasn't there when I turned around. I don't see how he could move in his state yet alone under sedation."
"What are you talking about, Dan?" Jane asks, concerned.
"It's like he just... disappeared," Dan replies, looking equally perplexed. Jane frowns and thinks for a moment. "Have you noticed any unusual readings or activity on the ship's sensors recently?"
Dan turns his head. "Yes actually, our life sensors have been counting to many electromagnetic signatures. Checked the sensors and they glitch out every time it miscounts. But we don't have any spares. Not my department anyway, I know enough to use the bloody system." Jane furrows her brow in concentration as she processes this information. "Okay, let's think about this logically. What could be causing these electromagnetic signatures?"
Mark shakes his head knowing his mother. "It's not that. We already proved those aren't possible." She snaps at him. "But maybe they are Mark," Jane replies, her tone serious. "And putting Blaze under might've been a bad idea. The other animals didn't die from the radiation. The ones that got used to it and resonated with it killed them as they... went crazy." ...
...
... Hours later after finding Blaze on the other side of the ship.
He suddenly starts to stir in the bed, his eyes half-open. "W-what's happening?" he asks groggily.
Jane leans in close. "We're just trying to figure out what's going on. Can you tell us anything else about what you experienced when you ran off?"
Blaze lays his head back. "What do you mean anything else?"
"When you disappeared," Jane replies, keeping her voice calm. "Do you remember anything about it? Where you went, what you saw or felt?"
Blaze shakes his head slowly. "No, it was just... darkness. And then I was here." He pauses for a moment, trying to recall anything else. Jane gently places a hand on his arm. "It's alright, Blaze. We're here for you. Is there anything else you can tell us that might help us understand what happened?"
Blaze takes a deep breath. "I... I think I saw something but it was a strange dream. This light in the darkness, saw things go into and out of it then something pushed me through it and I came to here." He says holding his head.
Jane nods, her expression thoughtful. "That's interesting. Blaze, do you remember anything else about this light or the things going in and out of it?"
Blaze shakes his head again. "No, just a blur. But I know it wasn't normal." He adds with a shudder. "That's okay, Blaze. Thank you for sharing that with us," Jane says, her tone reassuring. "We'll keep digging for more information and see if we can figure out what might have happened to you."
Jane turns to Mark, who has been quietly observing the conversation. "Mark. What time did he wake up again?" Mark checks his watch. "He's been awake about 3:00am ship time."
Blaze looks at them, confusion still evident on his face.
Jane stands up. " Can you have an energy reading of the warp core from just before 3:00am, I got the last one? "Sure thing," Mark replies, pulling up the relevant data on his console. He quickly runs the analysis and checks the results. "The energy output of the warp core at that time was within normal operating parameters," he says, turning to Jane. "Nothing unusual detected."
Jane nods lost in thought. "Make the accuracy to within the energy changes equal to a human bio-electrical field"
Mark adjusts the settings on his console as instructed. After a few moments, he looks up from his work. "Okay, I've applied the new parameters. The energy output of the warp core at that time was slightly elevated for a moment, but still within safe limits."
"Interesting," Jane muses. "So, could you trace where that energy fluctuation went with data from the ship's sensors?" She asks...
"Of course," Mark replies, already starting to work on the task. He traces the energy fluctuation and quickly determines its path. "The energy surge was localized near the warp core. And...." he says pausing.
"Here..." Jane thinks then turns to Blaze. "Remember how three days ago we finished our mission?"
Blaze chuckles. "Yeah why?"
Surprising everyone, Jane quickly cuffs him to the sturdy hospital bed frame and backs away quickly. "Who are you?"
Blaze looks at Jane, confusion turning to concern as he tries to wriggle out of the cuffs. "I'm Blaze. Who are you?" he asks, his voice shaking slightly.
Mark looks up from his console, a look of shock on his face. "I don't understand," he murmurs. "That's the dumbest answer. No are you crazy or what the hell's wrong with you..." He turns to his father.
The doctor quickly assesses Blaze, his eyes darting between the readouts on his monitors and the man on the bed. "I need a full scan of his vitals," he says, his voice tinged with urgency.
Jane holds up a hand stopping him. "That's not Blaze." She says
Mark turns to her. "Seriously, its not fucking ghosts mom. Nothing supports their existence but heresay."
Blaze chuckles... "You wish I was a pathetic little ghost." He says pulling apart the restraints easily.
Standing up he moves his arms and legs. "Took longer than I thought to over power the other guy that was here first. And you sir are so wrong.... Mark was it?.... And now we can use the warp core to illuminate our escape into this universe. Guess they shoulda listened to your mommy kid huh. Where do think the energy comes from...." He says menacingly.
Mark looks at his mother then back at Blaze. "Dad..Y.. your just not ok... "
Blaze holds out a hand as an invisible force knocks Mark across the room. " I'll even let you run and hide first." He says cocking his head to the side.
Blaze chuckles as he looks at Mark and Jane, a sinister smirk playing on his lips. "You're both such easy targets," he says, his voice dripping with disdain.
Suddenly the room fills with what feels like warp drive energy as loose objects and papers being flying through the air forcing everyone out as the thing inside Blaze watches them patiently from the center of the malestrom.
Jane fights against Mark as he pulls her away closing the door and locking it from the outside breaking the panel.
His mother slams her fists into the armored door denting it as she drops to her knees crying. Mark slumps against the wall as his mind processes the scene in silence unable to accept how his world view was just changed.
As the door shakes from his mother's furious pounding, Mark realizes that Blaze has been taken over by lifeform far beyond their understanding.
The energy surge that filled the room was unlike anything they had experienced before. The thought of the warp core being activated sends shivers down his spine...
...
...
Hours later they have sealed off the medical wing and gathered the ship's 1000 crew to the hanger for a briefing. The captain stands at the front of the assembled crew, his face grim. "We have a situation on our hands," he begins. "One of our first in command, Blaze, has been taken over by an... alien entity. We believe this entity is responsible for the recent surge of energy we experienced, which is linked to the warp core."
The captain's voice echoes through the hanger, his words hanging heavy in the air. The crewmembers exchange worried glances, the gravity of the situation sinking in. "We must treat this as a potential threat to the ship and everyone aboard," he continues. "Our priority is to contain and understand this entity, and if necessary, neutralize it."
Jane looks at him in shock but stays quiet. Mark takes a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. "We have a plan," he says, addressing the crew. "We'll start by isolating the medical wing and containing the entity within it. We'll then begin analyzing its capabilities and weaknesses."
Minutes later Jane stops him. "You could at least act like it's your father and not just some animal." Mark's face hardens. "I'm doing what I need to do to protect this ship and its crew," he says firmly. "We can't afford to let our emotions cloud our judgment right now."
He turns to a few of the crew as they walk by, his voice regaining its earlier confidence. "We've got this under control."
She glares at him. "We can get him back Mark! Just please. Please.. give me time to figure it out." Mark hesitates for a moment, his mind torn between following protocol and trusting Jane's expertise. Finally, he nods reluctantly. "Fine. You have 24 hours to try and figure it out. But if there's no progress, we're moving forward with the plan."
She nods, her determination evident. "Thank you son. I won't let you down." She turns and heads towards her research lab, her mind already racing.
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew disperses, each going about their assigned tasks. As Jane enters her lab, she quickly gets to work. She starts by reviewing the data from the entity's containment cell, analyzing its energy readings and behavior patterns through cameras and sensors in the room containing him. The entity remains still, its eyes closed as if in deep thought or meditation. It radiates an eerie aura of energy that seems to pulse in time with its shallow breaths. Jane observes it closely, trying to determine its intentions and if it can be communicated with. It looks at the camera. "Jane, let me the fuck out of here." It growls as blue electricity sparks around it.
She flinches... "No, it's trying to trick me." She whispers closing the monitor as tears fill her eyes.
The entity's voice echoes through the lab, causing Jane to jump slightly in her seat. She shakes her head, trying to clear it of the sudden fear that washes over her. "No, it's not real," she whispers to herself, wiping away a tear that escapes her eye. "Oh we are real..." a voice whispers next to her ear. Jumping away from it she falls from her chair and quickly tries to leave the empty room.... . . . Mark hears her screams from down the hall and rushes into the lab, concern etched on his face. He sees her on the floor, shaking and breathing heavily. "Mom what happened? Are you okay?" He asks, kneeling beside her.
She looks up at him, her eyes wide with fear. "Mark... it spoke to me. It said it was real." She whispers, her voice trembling.
Mark takes her hands in his, offering reassurance. "It's just a hallucination, mom. You've been under a lot of stress lately."
As she tries to get up she struggles and he helps her up. She moves her shirt revealing a large bruise around her ribs. "Oh my god, Mom! You need to see the doctor right away," Mark says, alarmed. He supports her as they make their way out of the room and towards the makeshift medbay.
In the medbay, the ship's 2nd medical officer, Dr. Smith, greets them.
Dr. Smith looks concerned as he sees the bruise on Jane's ribs. "What happened here?" he asks, gently pressing on the area to check for any broken bones.
Jane winces in pain but tries to explain what she experienced in the lab. "I... I don't know. I think it was that thing." Mark steps in, "Dr. Smith, we were hoping you could run some tests on the entity to determine if it's a biological or technological being. We need to know how to counter it."
The doctor nods, understanding the urgency of the situation. "Of course, I'll get started on the scans immediately." ...
...
...
...
With Jane back in her quarters mark posts security outside while she rests. Mark sits at his desk, his mind racing with the information he just received. The entity on the ship is not only real but also communicating with his mother. He quickly pulls up the ship's log and begins to comb through the data from the scans.
After several minutes of analyzing the data, Mark notices something peculiar. There seems to be a consistent energy signatures coming from the areas where the strange events have occurred in the ship.
"It's different from any energy source onboard yet came from the core"
Mark decides to take a more proactive approach. He grabs his PAD and heads to the engine room. He finds the lead engineer, Sarah, hard at work on one of the warp engines. "Sarah, I need you to run a diagnostic on the engine core," he says, handing her the PAD.
Just as she takes takes the PAD an invisible hand reaches through her back bursting out of her chest as blood sprays The area. "Uh!" Sarah squeaks breathlessly as the clear hand crushes her still beating heart...
She goes limp as the life leaves her eyes, her blood outlining the spectral hand, dropping to the floor as it vanishes. Mark's eyes widen in horror as he pulls out his energy pistol and fires at the spot where the hand disappeared, hoping it hits something.
The ship's alarm blares as the engineers rush in to see what happened.
Mark orders them to secure the area and begin a full scan of the ship. He then heads to the bridge, where he informs the crew about the latest incident and their current situation.
As Captain, Mark orders a red alert. The ship shudders as the alarm klaxons blare, echoing through the corridors. The crew looks to him for guidance, their faces etched with worry and fear.
"Do we have communications back yet? It's a miracle we were even able to get to half light speed." He says.
The communications officer looks up from his console. "Communications are still down, Captain. We're unable to contact HQ."
Mark nods grimly. "Understood. In the meantime, we need to investigate this energy signature further."
Grabbing his energy pistol he goes to the medical wing. Where he stands in front of the locked room containing Blaze.
Looking at the pad. He looks back at the door. "After seeing what you can do... You're... You're not stuck in there are you?" Blaze smirks from within the room. "Of course not, Captain. I'm just happy to see you taking an interest in my work."
Mark glances at the security camera feed seeing the entity still standing in the middle of the medical room.
The door opens with a screech of metal faster than he can react. Jumping back as the door seems to vanish he aims into the room at the entity. The entity, a ghostly figure floating in the air, raises its arms defensively. A crackling blue energy surrounds it as it emits a low hum and it hisses through Blaze's teeth. Mark hesitates for a moment unsure if it will attack.
"What are you?" He asks cautiously. The entity seems to consider his question for a moment before speaking in a voice that echoes within his mind, "I am what you humans call an 'archon'. I am a being of pure energy, capable of manipulating the physical world."
Mark takes a step back, not quite believing what he's hearing.
"Let my father have his body back?" Mark asks the Archon. The Archon lowers its arms and the energy field around it dissipates. "I cannot simply 'give it back'. However, I can offer you a solution. I can transfer your comrade's consciousness into a suitable vessel."
Mark raises an eyebrow. "What do mean?"
The Archon floats closer to Mark, its ghostly aura seeming to solidify slightly. "I mean that I can transfer your comrade's consciousness into one of the dormant human bodies stored in cryonic stasis on this ship. It would require a complex procedure, but it would allow him to continue living."
"Why would you kill our top scientists on the ship, then offer something like that?"
The Archon tilts Blaze's head. "There was a threat to my existence so I... Neutralized it."
Mark's blood runs cold at the entities words. As the conversation continues, Mark remains cautious but intrigued by the Archon's offer. He questions the entity further about the specifics of the procedure and the potential risks involved.
Meanwhile, the security team arrives on the scene, their weapons drawn as they prepare to engage the entity if necessary.
The Archon hisses at the energy rifles as an ethereal demonic form flares around Blaze's body. "What are you?" Mark asks, his voice shaking with fear and awe.
The Archon raises its arms, again a blue energy surrounds it. "I am what you humans call an 'archon'."
"That's not what what I'm asking you.... What does your kind call themselves?" The Archon pauses for a moment, considering the question. "We refer to ourselves as the 'Children of Tartarus'."
Mark is about to speak when his mother appears beside him. "Tartarus, that's a cruel place in the underworld a myth from mellinia ago."
The Archon smirks. "Indeed, it is a place of torment and suffering. But we have evolved beyond our origins." It gestures towards the stasis chambers. "These dormant bodies will suffice for your comrade's continued existence. If you agree to the procedure, I can begin the transfer immediately."
She steps forward.... "Why can't you just take one of the clones. They're better than us in every way?"
The Archon smirks. "The clones are not truly alive, they lack the spark of consciousness that defines true existence. Your comrade's mind, on the other hand, holds immense potential and could thrive within one of these dormant bodies. And this body is... Special. Able to withstand my presence." It extends a hand towards the doorway of the medical room.
The door slams down and it walks over to it Touching a large dent it chuckles. "What, you think a normal human can do that? Talk about cluless.... Are you going to accept my offer or not?"
Mark hesitates, weighing the options in his mind. The potential risks of the procedure are immense, but so is the reward - saving his father from certain death.
He takes a deep breath and nods. "Alright, let's do it. But we need to be sure that the procedure is safe and effective.... And what are the terms?" He says. The Archon smirks. "Terms? There are no terms. You agree to this, you save your father. Simple as that." It gestures towards the stasis chamber.
Mark squints at the strange change of accent and tone for a moment.
"Mom, wait... This has to be some kind of trap." Mark says to Jane. As the Archon speaks, Jane shakes her head. "Mark. This could be our only chance to save your father. We have to trust them." She glances at the stasis chamber and then back at the Archon

Chapter 22 - An Abuse of Trust
Previous Chapter
The meeting had been planned out the night before, between Kyshe’s aides and Par. Kyshe had initially requested to meet the captain alone, but Amanda had insisted upon coming along and after some back and forth, Kyshe relented.
The Presh Teff did not have a grand temple that reached into the heights of the sky. The citizens of her the Teff were largely agrarian, and so Kyshe lived not in a grand temple or skyscraper but instead in a relatively modest manor. It was still grand, FAR more than a single family needed, but in her defense a large majority of it was used for administrative purposes. Assistants, messengers, accountants, and others used the majority of the space. While Kyshe still lived better than most of her people, the difference wasn’t nearly as great as one would think seeing the outside. This fact was completely and totally lost on Alex who was simply following the guide to the arranged meeting room, but not on Amanda. As she walked through the hallways following along she noted everything she saw, mentally.
As they entered the meeting hall, Amanda immediately noted the armed guards. Not police forces, obviously, as none were male. Each of them had some form of firearm in a holster across their chest, and another strapped to each leg. They appeared to be wearing some form of body armor, though she couldn't tell at a glance what it might have been made of. In all, a sight that was likely meant to intimidate. Given the general height and build of Sovalin females, It worked.
Kyshe sat at a desk with two chairs arranged in front of her, and she gestured to each of them. “Please take a seat. I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending you don’t know why you’re here so I’d like to simply begin immediately.”
“Not exactly.” Alex tried to be as cautious as he could. “I mean, there’s the obvious, but… well, let me back up a bit. I assume that I can speak of certain sensitive subjects in present company?” He nodded his head towards the guards.
“You can.” Kyshe agreed.
“Alright. Yesterday was… not planned, I am assuming, by either of our people.” Alex began. “I think Matriarch Teeshya’s response was genuine and she didn’t know what was going to happen. And I would hope that what happened was obviously not something we instigated either.”
“No. In that we agree.”
“And the fact that our guide wasn’t there meant it was a secret. We realized as much and have not told her.” Kyshe relaxed a bit. If the worst came to pass, she had already been envisioning the distasteful task of either imprisoning or executing the Noarala. If their word was true, that much could be avoided. IF their word was true. “That is appreciated. I hope to assume this means you’ve told nobody else?”
“That’s accurate. Our entire crew knows, but we’ve been careful only to speak of it amongst ourselves.” Kyshe nodded and placed her hands on the table. “Then we can properly begin. We are at an impasse here. Your knowledge of the Matriarch Zelineth represents a threat to our people. To our interests and possibly even to our world itself. The Matriarchs have convened and have set forth a number of possible ways we can address this.”
“I’d assume the first way, and the one we wish to avoid the most, is to… remove us from the equation.” Alex cautiously prompted.
“It is. I won’t claim to like you or your crew, Captain, but aside from distrust I hold no particular ill will towards you. I hold a great deal of love of our people however and if your deaths are required to keep them safe I won’t hesitate in the slightest to call for it.”
“That most assuredly won’t be necessary, Matriarch. We have no desire to antagonize yourself nor your people. Exposing this secret would not benefit us.” Amanda spoke up before Alexander could. “We of course desire to seek out benefits for ourselves in relations with your people. That is only natural. What I am here to try to convince you of is that those benefits can extend to BOTH our peoples. That our gain does not have to happen with your loss.”
Kyshe folded her arms in front of her and regarded the Human female. She’d been briefed about them by the security teams, and knew that theirs was a species where both sexes held equal office in their society. As such she knew better than to assume that the female speaking out was meant to hold more authority than the male Captain.
“I would like to believe that. But I do not. We have learned a harsh lesson in trusting others, one that we refuse to be taught to us again.”
Alex looked over at Amanda, then back at the Matriarch. “Could you elaborate on that? I have heard that your people were cheated by the Bunters, but nothing beyond that. We were kind of hoping to have a bit more time to explore and learn about your people during this trip. Before, y’know, this all happened.”
Kyshe took a deep breath, and narrowed her eyes. “It was many, many years past. When my mother was Matriarch and I was her assistant. The Bunters found our world and reached out to us. They offered us technology and assistance to let us grow beyond this world. They told us of other races and how we could fly the stars alongside them. They offered much to us, yet held their true intentions at bay.”
Alex nodded at this. “Didn’t Zelinesh warn you about them? Or was she not around then?”
Kyshe shook her head. “Zelinesh was not here, but her predecessor was. Yet the sight only works on things and people, not on concepts. She could see the contract itself, see us signing it. We thought that meant it was acceptable, but the contents of the contract were very much not in our favor. Her sight could not warn us of that.” “At first, for a decade or so, we received the aid that was promised to us. We received ships and components. A communication relay. Computers that let us interface with it and reach out to see the other races. They shared as they said they would, but when the time came to pay them back they said our money was worth nothing. They asked for metals and minerals, and yet what we have on our world was insufficient. They took much, and still it was not enough. We had no idea the worth of the minerals in our system, and when they said it would cancel our debts, we gladly paid. Only to find that the minerals we granted them were worth far, far more than we had owed. Nobody stood up for us then. We had extended our trust, and now we have been robbed of our system’s riches and given a pittance in return.”
“Holy fuck.” Alexander muttered under his breath. When Amanda had said the Bunters took advantage of the Sovalin back on the station, he had thought they’d just made a bad deal. This was worse. This was highway robbery disguised as altruism. Crippling an entire planet’s economy and its people out of greed.
“So now you come here to us. A new species. And you profess friendship to us. You arrive with light, color, and sound and spoke reassuring words to us about how you wish to befriend us. And we have heard those words before.” Kyshe slammed her palm down on the table in front of her. “And we will NOT be fooled again. We will look out for our own interests this time. And if those interests mean we must be rid of you to be secure, then that is what we must do.” She relaxed and balled her fist up before them. “Yet, perhaps, your deaths are not required.”
“No?” Alex shared another glance at Amanda, and leaned forward. “As you can imagine, I’d like to avoid that as much as possible. I am responsible for my crew. I would very much like to find a solution where everyone can feel safe and there’s no loss of life.”
“That solution is simple. You stay here. We will have to have you watched, guarded, to ensure you speak of this to no one but if you do not leave the planet then we can make arrangements that require no violence.”
“Absolutely out of the question.” Alex shook his head. “Imprisonment is not something we can abide by. At all. Imprisonment would be death for us, just of a different sort.”
The soldiers shifted as he said this, but Kyshe held up a hand and they stilled. “Yet it is the only way. We cannot trust you not to speak of our secrets with others. We cannot risk Zelineth’s existence becoming widely known. If the Bunters came to take her, we cannot fight them off.” She made a gesture towards the sky. “They have fleets of ships. We have only a handful. They have dozens of worlds, we have but the one. They have technology we require as a species to prosper, and they use it as a weapon against us. She is our only defense, and as you now know she has her limits. How then are we to proceed?”
Alex sat there for a minute, mulling it over. The Matriarch brought up many valid points. Points which he could sit and argue, but would she believe him? COULD she? He put himself in her shoes and tried to think how he could be swayed, yet…
“You can’t.” Amanda was honest and blunt. She saw what had been done, and already knew how this tale would end. “You can’t proceed. You’re trapped.”
“Precisely so. We ARE trapped. And our only hope of salvation, meager though it may be, lies within Zelinesh and her ability to guide us.”
“That isn’t entirely true. Her ability alone won’t be enough.” Amanda shook her head. “You’re trapped in paper. In clauses, contracts, in money. She can’t foretell concepts, as you said. But those concepts are the prison that’s trapping you.”
Amanda stood up and began to pace behind Alex. She always felt like she thought better on her feet. “They’ve got your entire economy in a stranglehold. You’re reliant upon them for technology, and they sell it to you at an inflated price. You can’t afford to buy it so you have to give them something else. From what I have seen, that something else is labor. I assume that the Security Chief on Farscope, her entire detail, and most of the Sovalin we saw in the Pits were all ‘exchanged’ to perform duties in the place of payment for their goods?” Kyshe’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. That’s exactly how they phrased it.” She could feel her talons digging into the soft floor covering as she felt a familiar rage build up within her.
“I thought as much. We’ve seen this pattern throughout our own history. An impoverished society is found by a rich one, and they are exploited for their natural resources. The impoverished are offered aid, offered resources and goods. What they don't realize is how easy it is to become dependent upon those goods. They become reliant upon the larger society more and more until they can no longer continue without those goods. At that point the larger society is free to demand whatever they want, and the smaller one must pay.”
Amanda stopped pacing and glanced at the door they came through. “It’s not entirely hopeless of course. There ARE ways with which we can break this entire cycle. Free your economy and your people from the Bunters influence.”
Kyshe simply nodded, and gestured for her to continue. “The first thing that needs to be done to free yourselves is going to be technological independence. So long as you are buying what you need from the Bunters, you’ll never escape them. Until you can produce local equipment and components of sufficient quality and affordability you can’t even begin to separate yourselves from them. The second is physical security. Once you’ve achieved technological independence then you need to ensure that the Bunters cannot take by force what they used to take by bargaining.”
“I concur. I suppose now that you will say that Humanity will step in and aid us in both of those endeavors? At great cost to yourselves, that you offer freely without regard to the price?” Kyshe shook her head. “You understand our plight well enough, yes. Yet how are we to trust that by removing ourselves from the Bunters we are not replacing them with yourselves? That we won’t find ourselves once again trapped by an insurmountable debt?”
Amanda suddenly lost steam. “Well, I mean… we can definitely offer our aid and our assistance, yes. And it won't be cheap but there would be eventual gains we can work out." Her mind raced as she tried to make calculations based on the potential profits of an alliance. "I mean, yes, there may be some period where we operate at a loss but we can recoup that later."
"Recoup how?"
"Well, we'd have to go over the exact figures to determine that. It's not like I can tell right now just how much of a debt could be incurred, and and whether or not there's a local resource that can..." Kyshe interrupted her immediately. “There. You see? Even here as we speak you speak of debt and resources and losses.”
Alex stood up, and walked over to Amanda. “Wait outside for me, alright?”
“Al, hold on. Let’s go over this some more. We can find some kind of…”
“No. Wait outside. I’d like to speak with the Matriarch alone.”
Amanda glanced over to the Matriarch, who lifted a hand. One of the soldiers who had escorted them in walked up and gently guided the Human female out of the door.
“We are alone, Human. Say your piece.”
Alex took a deep breath, struggling to put the chaotic thoughts in his mind in place. “Amanda is a businesswoman. All those abstracts like money, contracts, agreements, those are her bread and butter.” The Matriarch gave him a blank look. “A human idiom. They’re her specialty I mean. When we were discussing how to proceed, we thought she might be the best one of us to try to explain how we could benefit your people. Which, I am now realizing, was a mistake. I should have just come here alone, like you wanted.”
Kyshe gestured to the door. "You are here alone now."
"Yes. Yes I am. I'm not a bureaucrat or an accountant or even particularly good at math. But that's not the issue right now. The issue isn't payment or resources or contracts. The issue is TRUST." Kyshe nodded at this. "Exactly so."
He walked back over to the table, and sat down in front of Kyshe. “Trust isn't something that can be bought or sold. We can't make a contract for you all to trust us, and that's why I asked Amanda to leave. Because what I'm about to say she'll find utterly ridiculous." He stared the Matriarch in the eyes. "It's my belief that there is a non-material means by which your people can repay us. One which doesn’t involve minerals, or labor, or technology transfers. No exchange of goods. No slavery, no contracts.”
“Pretty words. Empty ones.”
“No, not empty.” Alex took another deep breath. “But not easy to convey. I’ll do my best to try to explain. Amanda wasn't the right person here because she's a numbers girl. Josh or Min could probably say this better than me but they're my subordinates in the end, so that puts it on me to explain. And to understand why those words aren't empty, I need to explain something about Humans.”
“Humans are a social species. And not just with ourselves. On our home, on Terra, we have spent a millennia with other beings. Other creatures. We rode horses into battle and used them as labor, yes. But they were also companions and friends. To some people they were as close as family. We have pets we used for hunting and protection, but then invited them into our homes as family. There are people who would value their pets over other Humans' lives. But they are not intelligent as we are. They give and received affection, but they can't stand beside us as equals. That, I think, is why we created the AIs. You heard Par and Borala talk about it. The AIs are our children, our creations, and we made them so we wouldn’t be alone.”
He stood up and gestured above him, growing more animated as he spoke. “When we finally left our world and reached space, we spread out. We colonized another world in our home system, and created stations in the void we could work at and visit. We sent out scouts in every direction trying to find out what else is out here with us, but…” his voice fell.
“The last I checked, Humans have explored over two hundred other star systems. We’ve found planets teeming with life, but not intelligence. For the entirety of our existence, we thought we were an anomaly. We searched for other intelligent life and found none. We thought we were alone in crossing that line from sapient to sophont. And then, by sheer chance, we stumbled across a ship dead in space. Intelligent life. The Bunters, the Cetari, the Fwenth. And when we found them, I can’t tell you how excited I was! We finally, finally found others out here in the void!”
“And yet when we reached Farscope, the Bunters tried to cheat us just as they did you. They didn’t give a goddamn about us for anything other than resources. The Cetari? They avoided us. Didn’t even agree to meet with us. The Fwenth… I mean, I don’t even know where to start there. They were not rude or anything, but they’re just so… alien to us. Maybe we'll make headway there but I doubt it. When we were travelling to the station we thought the rescuees were just recalcitrant because of their near-death experience. The station showed us that was their nature.”
Kyshe sat impassively in front of him as he continued. “And then, we found something new on the station.” Alex sat back down, his hands folded on his lap. He leaned in as he spoke with the Matriarch. “The very first time I laid eyes on your people I felt drawn to them. You and your people are incredibly beautiful to me. At first I thought it was just because we’re physically similar - minus the wings and feathers of course. Then when we socialized with Sophie back on the station we realized there was more than just physical traits we shared. We shared our culture with her and she appreciated it. We asked for her time and her friendship and she gave it to us freely. Where others avoided us she approached us and made us feel welcome. Where others tried to cheat us, she treated us fairly. I wanted to find out just how much more our people share. And so we came here.”
He gestured behind him. “We haven’t been here long, but it was less than a day before we’d started making friends. My engineers are enraptured with our guide and her aircar. We went to your Grand Temple and we found appreciation for the same values we have. Our arts and music held little to no interest to the other races, yet you can appreciate them with us. I don’t know if you all cry, but I swear that Teeshya was in tears when we offered to play some songs in the temple. The other races didn’t give a damn about our culture and music but you guys actually love it like we do.”
He let his arms fall, and shook his head. “And I ain’t gonna sit here and lie and say every Human is some amazing trustworthy person. A lot of us are bad. A lot of us are greedy or selfish or cruel. But even THOSE people, the worst of us, are still the same deep down. Even they seek out companions. Even they surround themselves with other people like them so they aren’t alone.”
“Humans need friends. We need people we can walk beside. People we can talk to. People with can fight with or argue with. People we can fight beside. People we can bond with. It’s an integral part of our nature, one of the deepest parts of who we are as a species. We need you beside us. That’s what you can give us. That’s what you can be to us. In a way that no other species can, you can stand beside us out here in the galaxy. If you’ll let us, neither of us will be alone out here anymore.”
As he finished, the room descended into silence. Kyshe stared intently at Alex as he’d spoken, not saying a thing. Not moving a muscle. Just sitting, listening. The soldier that was still present shifted in her armor, but Alex didn’t spare a glance towards her. At that moment only two beings existed in the world. Himself, and the Matriarch who held his future in his hand.
Eventually, she too took a deep breath, and nodded. “Then tell me, Captain, if we were to let you live, how exactly would you proceed from here?”
Alex bit his lip. This was the make or break moment. “I can make every assurance to you about how we’ll keep your secret, but I know that Humanity has to EARN your trust. We can’t do it instantly, but if you’ll give us some time we can prove ourselves. I'm offering our help right now. No contracts. No agreements. Nothing to tie your people to us. We will help you recover from what the Bunters did."
Kyshe tilted her head. "For no return? For no profit for you?"
"Well there's another saying we have. Money can't buy happiness. If our help manages to sway you over to our side, if we can become friends and stand together in the future? That would be a hell of a return for us."
“And Zelineth?”
“Will be a secret told to no one. We’ve found beings in this universe that actually seem to give a damn about us. That’s priceless to me.” Alex placed his hands palm down on the table. “There’s too much that both of us will lose if we expose your secret.”
Kyshe didn't respond to that. His words were tempting. Incredibly so. She'd often despaired that no one out there seemed to care about her people. Now the captain professed to care. He offered them friendship. But did she dare take him at his word?
She reached out to a console on the table, tapping a button and immediately the wall behind Alex glowed to life. Four familiar faces were present, each one staring intently at Alex. Now he could clearly see that yes, Sovalin did in fact cry. Teeshya was most definitely crying.
“As Matriarch of the Presh, I say now that the Captain and his crew will not be silenced. We will afford them trust in this matter.” She stared intently at Alex. “Please, please do not make us regret this.”
—--
“Okay folks. We’re gonna be changing up our stay here. Vacation’s over, it’s time to go to work.”
The last several hours had been rather intense. Amanda had spent her time going over the contracts between the Sovalin and the Bunters, looking for loopholes and oversights. Alex, on the other hand, had spent most of the time talking with Kyshe about himself and his motivations. The speech he’d given had struck a chord within her and she’d quickly gotten over her earlier trepidations.
“Vacation? Is that what we’re calling the two days we’ve spent here in total?” Ma’et had spent much of the day in her room within the Noarala Hab, miserably. Something in the local air had triggered an allergic reaction, and the antihistamine pills that Josh had given her weren’t quite up to the task of dealing with it. The shuttle had stronger chemicals available, but was currently with Alex and Amanda in the Presh Capitol, so until they returned she had to lie there, fighting the urge to rub itchy eyes while sniffling and sneezing.
“Yup. We’re officially back to work. We have a golden opportunity in front of us, courtesy of our new best friends the Sovalin. Amanda has assured us that Terrafault will be picking up the tab on this opportunity so we’re gonna make the best of it. Amanda’s gonna explain.”
“Golden Opportunity is quite accurate.” Amanda was still sorting through paperwork, but her attention was entirely on the call. “There’s bad news and good news. The bad news is that the Bunters appear to be well on their way to economically dominating these people into becoming more or less a servile class. They’re being fairly brazen about it too. The Bunters were a fully FTL civilization when they came across the Sovalin, and they didn’t hesitate to offer everything they could. And they overcharged the absolute hell out of it all. They deferred and delayed payments while flooding the local markets with state of the art tech to aid in nearly every aspect of their lives. Agriculture, Transit, Computers, Orbital infrastructure, you name it and the Bunters have ‘improved’ it. And when the avians became reliant on the tech, the debt became due. Now something like a tenth of their entire population is working to pay off the debts outside the system and that number is growing fast.”
“The good news is that the contracts that the Bunters have signed give us an opportunity that we absolutely cannot pass up. Alex’s big speech has convinced these people we’re on their side and trustworthy and thanks to that we can turn this situation around big time. The long and short of it is that the Bunters have given the Sovalin carte blanche when it comes to purchasing non-military tech. And since they knew that they were overcharging for it, they knew nobody else would want to buy it from the Sovalin. As a result they never put any restrictions on resale in any of their contracts. End result? If Humanity can aid the Sovalin in escaping from the Bunter’s influence and help them stand on their own, we have access to an absolutely immense amount of alien technology to study. And appropriate.”
Josh whistled at this. “That sounds… too good to be true. What kind of tech are we talking about anyway?”
“Just about anything you can think of. When the Bunters came by they gave out medical technology, transit, recycling, computer systems, power generation and storage, communication gear, various agricultural tools from automated weeders to powered harvesters, really you name it and they’ve put their fingers in it. Which means that while we will be getting access to an incredible amount of equipment ourselves, we have zero idea what will be useful and what won’t be. Doesn’t matter though. Even if it’s crap if nothing else the scientists back in Proxima will want to study it.”
“And the birds are OK with just giving us access to all of this?”
“Yup. We’ve been discussing it and none of it is really THEIRS to begin with. It’s all Bunter tech so it isn’t like they’re losing out on anything directly. They are a bit wary about buying our tech, but we’re working on that. The biggest hurdle is going to be the fact that the Bunters doing all of this has severely damaged their faith in others, so it’s on us to prove that we’re entirely above board on all of this. No secrets, no surprises.”
“Sounds easy enough. And by easy enough, I mean it sounds like the sort of thing only you’ll be handling. Not to try to dump that on you, but the rest of us aren’t exactly going to be useful with business negotiations.” Several dry chuckles echoed through the group chat at Josh’s observation.
Alex jumped back in at that. “Amanda’s gonna be handling the business shit, yeah. But in the mean time we’re gonna start finding ways to improve things here. For that, we’re going to be laying the groundwork for this whole damn project.”
“That sounds ominous. What groundwork needs to be done?” Ji was leaning against Trix’s aircar while they chatted. He’d been elbow deep in the drive systems when the group call had started.
“Each of you are going to be liaising with different groups over the next week. Our first goal is to prepare these people for being able to USE our tech in the first place. Swapping out shit like new harvesters or whatever is the easy part. Replacing planetary computer systems and the like will be much harder. The second goal is to provide a buffer for them so that if they need to make additional purchases to get by until we can step in, they can do so without selling more of their people into servitude.”
“For the first goal, I want Ji, Min, and Par to design an interface between the local computer systems and ours. Once we get a manufactory out here we’re going to want to put our own systems in place in tandem with theirs. That way we can work on replacing their systems slowly and not all at once with a minimum amount of disruption. If you need to return to the ship to use the fabber we’ll make arrangements.”
“So long as you let me fab a couple other things while we’re up there, that’s fine.” Min and Trix were going over some of the calculations on Min’s quickboard, debating and discussing adjustments to the aircar.
“Get the designs to Par. He can submit them to the fabber and you can pick them up when you’re back up there.” Alex didn’t even need to ask what they wanted fabbed. Those two had been laser-focused on the fun new toy since they arrived at the Noarala hab.
“Josh, while those three are getting an interface going there, medical tech is one of the bigger imports they get from the Bunters. But I distinctly remember you saying that the Sovalin can use chemical remedies instead. The Nof flock has the single largest training facility for doctors and medics on the planet. In fact every other training facility is under that one. You’re going to be coordinating with a team over there about everything you learned on the station.”
“Nearly everything I learned was just spat out of the onboard medical facilities. If you want more useful info, then we should take some samples up to the ship and load them into the autolab there.” Josh suggested. “I’m a medic and not a doctor but with the ship’s systems I can get a pretty decent base system for treatment going while we GET doctors and scientists out here to make more comprehensive adjustments and changes.”
“Let’s do that. In fact, Ji, when you or Min head up to the Fabber I want you to take Trix and Josh with you. Well, if she’s OK with it. If not find someone who’ll be OK with it and take them up. Get whatever scans or info you can while you’re up there then you’ll be joining us back on the ground.”
“Roger that.”
“Ma’et, once we bring the shuttle back and you’re feeling better we’re going to be having you ferry things around. Not the most glamorous job but an important one. When you’re not flying, feel free to offer up any suggestions you might have. I won’t pretend like I know how the hell you break into the systems you do, so I have no clue how your EW skills can be useful for this part of the plan but I know you’re resourceful as hell and will find some way to contribute.”
“Just get back here so I can breathe through my nose again. And so you can see me when I’m flipping you off.”
“After we finish all this prep, we’re going to be heading back to JR692. As a part of this whole deal we’re offering the Sovalin our mining rights to the system. Terrafault’s agreed through Amanda to reimburse us for it. The birds will need raw materials and since the Bunters have claim to everything not on Kiveyt or its orbit, we’re going to help them in that regard too.”
“As a gift?”
“Technically, no.” Amanda cut in. “The mining rights to the system are being used to purchase the Sovalin’s access to Bunter tech. But we are overpaying by such an extreme amount that it is essentially a gift. A necessary one. Once we get a manufactory out here they’re going to need raw resources after all.”
“Also it’s a good way for us to put our money where our mouth is.” Alex mentioned as well. “The end goal is to help them stand on their own without having to rely on anyone at all, Human or Bunter. But getting there won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap. They were adamantly against handouts or charity at first but the reality is that it can’t be avoided. So once we’ve done as much as we can here locally, we’re going back to JR692 to complete the original survey mission, but we’re also going to be bringing back as much as we can to help get them by for now. And while we’re out there, we’re going to be sending our emergency beacon back to Proxima. I’m a little uncomfortable being without it when we know there’s hostile FTL-capable species out here, but I don’t want to leave them out to dry while we navigate all the bureaucratic crap. If we’re here on Kiveyt at least they’ll know that we haven’t skipped out on them.”
Ma’et sniffed loudly, then asked “What’s the plan if the Tanjeeri are still in the system?”
“Come in further out than before, high above the ecliptic. Run a full scan of the system before we approach, and abort if they’re waiting around. If they’re gone, we pick up where we left off. If they’re around, we come back here and come up with a new plan.”
“And if they’re there but hiding in wait?”
“Then we get to find out first hand how much of a gap there is between our tech and theirs.”
—--
The past few days had been excruciatingly boring for Trksehn. After the big…. WHATEVER it was that happened at the Temple that nobody would explain, things had gotten busy as hell. The humans had been flying their shuttle nonstop around the planet, and nothing they’d been doing had needed a guide or an interpreter. She couldn’t indulge in working on her Soranet, since half the parts they needed still had yet to be ‘fabbed’ as the Humans kept saying. It really wasn’t a Soranet anymore, truth be told. The same basic shape and design, sure, but with some massive changes inside.
Working together with the humans on the car had been one of the best experiences of her life. Everything they did, every change they made, they made with her involvement. Every change no matter how minute was run past her. Every time they opened it up to make one adjustment or the other they had her do it and walked her through it step by step. It was perfectly clear and obvious to her that the two engineers didn’t need her around for any of it, but they were both quite clear about wanting her involvement in all of it and she loved every moment they’d spent together huddled around a schematic or wiping away grease and lubricant from her feathers.
Ji had also thrown a fit when he’d seen the control surfaces for the aircar. “You have this incredibly sleek streamlined gorgeous vehicle and you ruin it by putting all these ugly spikes and blades everywhere?” was his exact statement, and while Trksehn… ‘Trix’ as they loved to call her, didn’t mind at first she had to agree that the mockups on Min’s quickboard definitely looked better. She was still concerned that only having steering on the tail end of the car instead of on all four engine mounts would make the car more difficult to control, but Ji had reassured her that wouldn’t be the case.
With nothing else to do she had taken to chatting with friends, but she’d also found that to be lacking as well. For one, most had decided that her stories of the Humans taking an interest and actually helping out with tuning up her Aircar had been fictitious. “Why would they care about an aircar when they have interstellar ships and a shuttle that can fly beyond atmo?” “Stop trying to sound like you’re friends with them. They’re just staying in your Hab.” “It’s getting pretty pathetic the way you keep pretending.”
After an hour of trying to explain herself (And getting absolutely nowhere) she’d chucked the thing off the bed in disgust, and lay there feeling miserable. None of it was her fault, she’d been volunteered for the duty and tried to do it well. She was trying to start a conversation when she’d brought up the aircar. Why was it so difficult to imagine the Humans being interested?
A knock at the door brought her out of her self-pity and she heaved a sigh as she stood up to get it. Ji was waiting for her outside. “Hey Trix. Got a few?”
“A few of what?”
“Got some time? We have something we want to run past ya.”
“Oh, sure.” She closed the door and let Ji lead her to the gathering area where the rest of the Humans were at, while inwardly mocking those who didn’t believe her. The Humans were calling for her whether they believed it or not.
Alex raised a hand in greeting. “Good to see you girl. Sorry we haven’t been really involved in much right now, but things got hectic. We could use your help right now though.”
“Of course. What do you need?”
Alex glanced over and nodded at Josh. Josh cleared his throat and gestured outside the hab, to the square where the shuttle was parked at. “Several of us need to return to the ship for a bit. We have to pick up some gear and while we’re at it, we’d like your help in learning a bit more about your people.”
“Up on the ship?” Trix couldn’t help but grin at that. Those jealous losers wouldn’t believe her if she told them that she was going out to visit the Humans’ ship, but they didn’t matter at all. “I mean, yeah, absolutely!”
“Hold up. When I say learning a bit more about your people, I mean we want to run some medical tests.” Josh made a ‘lowering’ motion with his hands. “They won’t hurt, they aren’t invasive, but it’s not something we’re willing to do without your consent.”
“Oh. Uh…” Trix glanced down at herself, and looked up a bit more apprehensively. “What exactly do you mean by tests?”
“Well, we want to be able to offer your people medicinal technology and aid in the future.” It wasn’t a lie, and if he wasn’t mentioning the Bunters then there was no need to elaborate. “I’ve been going over some basic info with the Nof physicians, but we just need some samples and a couple scans so we can tell how much of medical techniques will be safe for you. The process is entirely painless and there’s zero risk involved.”
Trix bit the inside of her lip as she considered, but eventually nodded. “I mean… I suppose so?”
Josh reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. “It’s not as bad as whatever you’re imagining. If you’re nervous or uncomfortable about it we can find someone else…”
“NO! No I mean I’d like to go up. I just don’t know what you mean by scans and samples.” Trix wasn’t about to lose out on an opportunity to visit the ship, even if they were being cagey about what they needed exactly.
“Oh. We just need saliva and blood samples along with EKG, MRI, CT, and PET scans. Most of those you guys do already for diagnostics, but they’re just not as precise as our instrumentation allows for. The samples are so we can see the effects our pharmaceuticals would have on your people. We don’t want to test anything unknown and risk anyone’s health.”
Trix was still a bit uncertain, but took a deep breath and nodded. “That’s fine. If it’ll help people and I won’t be hurt, there’s no good reason for me to refuse. Plus I want to see your ship.”
“Atta girl!” Alex thumped her lightly on the back and nodded over to Ji. “Ma’et will be flying you, Josh, and Ji up there in an hour. Expect roughly 90 minutes transit to and from the ship, and probably…” Alex had to stop and do some math in his head.
With only 4 fingers per hand it wasn’t surprising that the locals had a base-8 math system. Their planet’s orbit was considerably closer to a circle and their axial tilt much less pronounced than on earth, so splitting the day into two 8-period segments (8 local ‘hours’ of daylight and 8 ‘hours’ of nighttime) was the norm. In Terran units, the days would have been about 28 and a half hours long though so trying to convert terran hours to Kiveyt time wasn’t always a quick process.
“I dunno. Let’s say 10 local hours total on the ship. Rough guess. Might be more or less but we have facilities onboard for food and rest if it goes long.”
Min was looking sulky, and Trix reached over to shake her a bit. “What’s the matter babe?” She still didn’t quite get that bit of lingo but she’d heard Josh use the phrase once and when Trix repeated it to Min, she’d thought it was hilarious.
“Ji won the RPS to take you up there. I was going to show you around but I’ve got to work on other things down here.” Ji walked over and set a hat down on his sister’s head, pushing the brim down to cover her eyes. Ignore her. She lost fair and square. She’s just mad I always know when she’s going to throw paper.”
Trix knew that RPS was some arcane decision making tool that Ji and Min often used to settle debates by shaking hands and making gestures, but she still didn’t entirely follow. Something about a rock breaking a blade but being broken by paper? How do you break a rock with paper?
Oh well, that was between the two of them and not her business. “Uhm, alright. Then when will we be leaving?” Ji grinned and waved at the entrance to the Hab. “Right now. We’ll have anything you need up there, so there’s zero reason to wait. Up, up and away.”
—--
Next Chapter

The Crypt fleet shook as it was thrown around in gravitational waves, many ships lengthening, almost like they were woolen fibers being spun into string, stretching and stretching longer and longer, swirling around the hungry mass that surrounded their target, Charon's Child.
"My lord, we must retreat. The Temple has been consumed from the inside and if we remain, we will be as well." One of the darkened figures said, tone flat, optics glowing an eerie red in the darkened chamber.
A single figure stood in the middle of the room, around the control alcoves, where obscured figures hung inside capsules, cables going from them into the vessel. ".......and what of the fleet the Child was with? Can we use them as a bargaining chip?" The figure said, optics lighting up on its head, aimed at the other figure on the edge of the dias.
"No, my lord. The fleet appeared to have ships equipped with a similar system as the Child, and as soon as she began to fight us using her True Strength, they pulled themselves and their allies out of the firing line. Where, our Scryers have yet to discern as of yet." The figure reported, as the other in the center of the room stood still.
Somehow, the room never moved an inch, even when the hull of the vessel was struck with another of their fleet, tearing trenches in its hull, the vessel letting out a low sound as it tried to right itself, attempting to keep up the hunt.
"........ full retreat. We have lost too many vessels today, and more resources than were allowed. Begin drafting a report for the Primarch, leave nothing out." The figure said after a moment, and without turning around, walked out of the room towards their Quarters, where a spinning replay of the battle was being prepared, to learn where they went wrong………
/----------------/
Within the Event Horizon, on the other hand, things operated much differently. Her crew could feel every twist, every current of her black hole, spinning around them, fed with the mass of that massive star ship they had consumed.
Her newest addition had given her and her crew a new grasp on her ability to create and control the black hole around her, using her corona to reach out and grab vessels to consume and tear apart, more ideas forming as the draconid shared her knowledge with them, Asimov devouring it, looking for ways to improve it, implement it in a variety of new ways.
Before long, however, the enemy fleet began pulling out, leaving the remaining ships as fodder to try and distract them from destroying, consuming all of them for threatening their fleet, Her sister ships…..
And the Horizon was having NONE of that.
The eerie, orange coronal ring around her split apart, five smaller black spheres now surrounding her for a moment before racing forward, not controlled by her, but by her crew, channeled through her, racing forward in the mere blink of eye, consuming vessels before they could react, or slung them around at one another, pinning them between to tear them apart slowly, spaghettifying them, or slamming into one another to cause disturbances and disrupt their computers calculations to prevent their escape…. Strangely, one of the smaller vessels broke away, transmitting its surrender….
The sphere Blink was controlling slung the vessel to a safe distance, before returning to the fray, three of the Black holes slamming into one another, forming a stream of Xray particles in between them all, and used it like a cosmic plasmacaster. They began bathing the hostile vessels in cosmic energies they were not prepared to be struck with, burning their hulls slowly, preventing escape as they disrupted the fabric of space and time, before shooting apart, spiraling at the edges of the battlefield, slowly shrinking their orbits.
/-----------------/
4-LOM watched in horrified fascination as his child and her crew tore into the Crypt fleet with the new tactic, optics shuttering as he saw one vessel flung to the side. The Chariot shook as she tried to keep the fleet stable, her drives burning in unison with the rest of the fleet capable of Vhole space travel, chattering in aggravation that she couldn't join the fight, but understood why.
"Aragorn, Ambassador Hendriks, the Yggdrasill is receiving Psionic readings from those black holes, one of which matches Vikaras neural patterns, what in the name of Hel is going on out there!?" One of the holograms of a sensor officer from the massive ship said, looking up in panic, even as the massive draconid known as Novak watched silently.
"It's not unlike using a Psionic hand, but….how is it using a black hole as it's medium?" The massive sentient rumbled, watching in fascination and trepidation, when 4-LOM sighed.
"That'll be me lassie's doin'. Likely, the liddle blighter is synced with Vikaras head, along with the rest O' her crew…… and looks like they're workin' in tandem, channeling Vikaras psionics through me gals Vhole drives……" 4-LOM said, accent thickening in worry. "Ah cannae help but worry she'll pop a line somewhere….." The old bot said, watching the devastation that the crew wrought on the Crypt fleet.
"You're….. oh sweet gods…." Aragorn said, the eldarian managing to get paler than he already was. "You're her shipwright, aren't you?" He asked, getting the attention of the Squats on the bridge, staring at the old machine as he nodded.
"Aye, and if yer about ta ask for her schematics….." 4-LOM rumbled, head twisting around sharply to stare at them, his thinner armature on his back pulling out a large wrench, and placed it in his larger servos.
Nearby, Hendricks sighed, placing a hand on 4-LOMs shoulder. "4-LOM, no scaring our allies. Your daughter and her crew are doing that enough as it is." The human said flatly. "And, somehow, she's managing the completely flat out impossible to boot." He grumbled, glancing back at the sight of the Horizon and her crew tearing apart the opposing fleet before settling back down.
Eventually, the spheres controlled by the psionic presences of the Horizons crew merging with the vessels anomalous presence…and then went dormant, as the ship pulled herself back to reality proper, crooning softly, sitting happily in the middle of the debris field, like some sort of tiny, hyperdestructive spider.
On the bridge of the Chariot, everything calmed down, the gravitational waves fading away now that the little ship wasn't throwing reality around like a pillow, and allowed the ambassador fleet to pull out of Vhole space, breaching carefully.
“Sweet merciful Alfather” someone, likely a Squat, whispered, seeing the debris field…and the partially shattered remains of the ship that had surrendered, drifting almost uselessly around the Horizon as the satiated ship played with her Vhole drive and new skills she had learned, toying with the disabled vessel while she waited for her sisters approach.
“Dammit, lassie.” 4-LOM sighed, shaking his head/optics at his ship-child. “Yer gonnae make me breakers pop.” He sighed.
/ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ/
Light-years away, Caliburn let loose his warhorn, the sound bursting eardrums of those too close, rattling skulls as the massive titan continued his slow March towards the massive fleshbeast tearing itself from the ground, twisting around on six bulky insectoid legs, chitin and ceramic coating its body as it hissed at him.
“THREAT IDENTIFIED. PRIMARY OCCUPATIONAL FORTIFICATION. COMMENCING EXTERMINATION. ALL FORCES, CLEAR AREA.” the towering machines Vox orders rang out, even as he felt the roars and insults his crews hurled at the enemies living fortress, his triad of optics spinning around the rail cannon at the center of his spherical head, scanning the horror as they slowly circled one another.
The beast lunged forward, splashing through the raising waters that had been dragged far up the landscape by the gravitational pull of the Texas floating above them, the ground cracking and shaking as the tectonics were altered, pulled in new ways by the too close warship.
Raising up on its back legs, the beast slammed down towards Caliburn, who responded by driving his spinning plasma cannons into the soft underbelly of the beast, tucking himself underneath the larger beasts bulk and fired. The combination of twisting, hot barrels and burning plasma detonating inside the beast made it screech, trying to pull back away.
Caliburn growled with his massive engines as the creature tried to escape, his gunnery crews roaring in anger, his turrets blazing all over the Cathedral structure on his shoulders/back, the artillery barrels retracted to prevent damage. With a brutal yank, the massive machine spun his upper body, digging a cauterized, smoldering trench along the beasts under belly, before yanking through its tooth filled maw.
The beast managed to pull Back, but not fast enough as Caliburn used his momentum of his upper body to keep going, slamming I to the ground and lifted Himself up, his landing engines in his massive feet burning for a moment to help kick up off the ground. His crew yelped in shock as he twisted, slamming one foot down into the beasts head, continuing the motion as he pulled his guns/massive manipulators out of the ground and clambered onto the mountain sized horror.
Both massive cannons whined as they charged up, the twin MACS and the rotary plasma cannons, aimed down at the beasts ‘heart’ he could detect.
“TERMINATING HOSTILE WARMACHINE.”
The machine growled, slamming both barrels against the chitin at point blank And let loose, chitin, ceramics flying as his crews unloaded, aiming at fleshy tentacle limbs and cannons erupting out around them, shredding them before they could do damage to their friend/teammate/fortress.
The horror roared as it felt the mixture of plasma and superheated metals slamming Into its body and layers of armor, before punching-
WHA-BOOOOM
A bright light filled the area as Caliburn struck his target, a nuclear power core imbedded within the beast and set it off, caught in the blast, even as he sealed his optics…..
For a moment, there was nothing but a bright proto star in the area, burning brightly, before fading, a massive mushroom Cloud rising into the air above the now massive crater…. Around the crater, the demons who hadnt been immolated or atomized roared in victory, thinking that, while they lost their primary staging point, they had taken one of the best ground units the Frails had-
BHUUUUUUUUH
A warhorn blared out over the battlefield, seeming to blueshift as it got louder and louder, silencing everyone, as many, in unison looked up…..
And saw Caliburn falling towards them, shields flaring and glowing brightly as he reoriented himself, his landing engines screaming as he fell, and slammed into the ground. Creaking was heard as he pried one foot, and then the other, out of the ground, seeming to roll his shoulders as he searched for his next target…
His MAC cannon was gone, destroyed completely, his armor burned and melted in many areas, shattered in others..but no less functional.
“DAMAGE ASSESSMENT……. MINIMAL DEGRADATION OF COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS. CONTINUING PACIFICATION OF ENEMY FORCES.” The aging machine rumbled, optics open once more, glowing with a defiant fire, his plasma cannons already spinning up before he began to unload into the ground forces, allies already evacuated.
His mission was now wholesale slaughter now that his primary target was destroyed, intent on leaving little to mop up.

The Severed Hand - 01 The Severed Hand - 03 The Severed Hand - 05
Thank you to those who commented last time. It motivates me.

2138-5-26 Admiral Daniel Stone.mem

SUBJECT: DANIEL STONE, HUMAN SEVERED HAND ADMIRAL
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
A dark cave.
Where am I?
The walls pulse. Like something alive.
"TRAITOR!"
I whirl around. One target, Gojid--No. Those claws are not Gojid. It is twisted and broken. Red eyes.
It lunges. Raise arm. Block. Injury: Slash wound, left arm.
I fall back. It has the upper hand. Wait! Sidearm. Aim. Shoot.
Shoot again. Again. Again. A burst to be sure.
It's down.
I approach the ruined corpse. The cave shifts. I'm in the Den. My radio crackles.
"Prisoner stampede in sector Aeternus-Tetra. Multiple are armed..."
The corpse remains. But that isn't Gojid. It is a human. I rush forward.
It still has the bullet wounds. Its face is unrecognizable. But the uniform... Admiral Mark Xavier.
The corpse looks at me. It speaks.
"You are betraying EVERYTHING I EVER STOOD FOR!"
Sidearm. Aim--
Awake. I look around. Room clear. Safe. No hostiles.
Dream. I rise from the bed. Grab pad. Check.
Date: 2138-5-26. An Isif day.

2138-5-26 Admiral Daniel Stone (1).mem

SUBJECT: DANIEL STONE, HUMAN SEVERED HAND ADMIRAL
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
Isif's shuttle lands. Ramp drops. Out comes Isif.
"Chief Hunter."
"Admiral Stone. You said you have something to show me?"
"Yes. Commander Suarez's work."
"Interesting. And the meat is going well?
"Of course. But for now, the program."
I gesture to the door. We walk.
"Who exactly is Commander Suarez?"
"Head of our neural program. My subordinate."
"The name of the... program did not translate."
"In short: To make machines that fight for us. Because personnel are scarce here. Not too many humans left."
"That is... ambitious. Do you have results?"
"Yes. Fully functional fighters. No sapients inside. Can take and follow orders."
We reach the end of the hallway. I open the door. Commander Suarez looks up from his console. He speaks:
"Welcome, Chief Hunter. This is the control room for all our current neural-fighters. That window there should be good enough to see this demonstration, but the console on the left is a more complete view of what's happening."
Isif walks to the window. I gesture to Suarez. He goes to the console.
"Squadron Tempora-Oct, NEXT-SEER. Datum-Tri. Squadron Silens-Hex, NEXT-SEER. Datum-Tri."
The two squadrons come from the sides. Toward each other.
"Tempora-Oct, NEXT-SEER. You are authorized to engage Silens-Hex."
The test begins.
It does not disappoint.

2138-5-26 Commander Gideon Michael.mem

SUBJECT: GIDEON MICHAEL, POSTHUMOUS SCAN
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
The line moves forward. Someone exits the confessional.
And yet, even now, I still agonize over what to think about Ferreus-Null. I bombed factories. Ever since I have been at war with myself over whether I should have done it.
The line moves forward again.
The factories were--at least according to Admiral Stone--war industry. If that was true, they were legitimate targets. Unfortunate for the workers, but that's war.
But the other squadron, Imperium-Hex was targeting a residential quarter. That was not a military target.
The line moves forward.
And if Admiral Stone was willing to order that... Can I trust he informed me accurately on the nature of that industry? Should I be taking orders from him at all?
Ah. I'm at the front of the line. The chaplain will no doubt help me settle this, then.
[EXCISED: SEAL OF CONFESSION]

2138-5-26 Rensek.mem

SUBJECT: RENSEK, VENLIL PRISONER OF WAR
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
I grab another one of those vile slabs of flesh and take a bite.
You monster.
Hey! Shut up! Let me monologue!
When I first realized my dwelling place was underneath some sort of meat factory, I wanted to vomit. But starvation is starvation, and eventually I had to do what I had to do.
You should've starved.
Oh yeah, that's also when this jerk showed up. The voice... I'm going insane. Who am I even thinking to? I'm going insane.
Whatever. I can't be bothered at this point. Sanity stopped being a priority a long time ago.
It's been long enough that I can avoid vomiting. Wandering around has shown me that the meat seems to be manufactured somehow. It isn't coming from fellow sapients at least. Small comfort.
The meat's almost certainly bad for me. Though at least I don't think I'll get PD--my life for the last month has shown me I already have it.
Of course you have PD.
Human activity has been low as well. Maybe if I take too many slabs off the conveyor someone will look, but so far, nobody's come checking to see why every so often there's a missing slab on the line. I'm not sure when the machines will need maintenance, though.
I'd best get my hands on a weapon.
You should. Use it on yourself.
No! Bad mind-voice-thing-whatever-you-are!
You have eaten flesh.
Yes, I have.
You are no better than them.
I don't kill people for my flesh.
They don't either.
Of course they do!
This is their meat factory. As you observed: No sapients involved.
What--The humans are fighting for the Arxur! I am not! There's no comparison!
But homeworld glassing is homeworld glassing, and eventually they had to do what they had to do to survive. Sound like familiar reasoning?
No, no. No, they are evil! They are upholding the Dominion. I intend to fight it.
Look at you, rationalizing away. What do you think the humans do to sleep at night?

2138-5-26 Admiral Daniel Stone (2).mem

SUBJECT: DANIEL STONE, HUMAN SEVERED HAND ADMIRAL
^{All Severed Hand .mem files are NOT TO BE SHARED with outside personnel except where ordered by the Admiral or required by Arxur Dominion leadership.}
I sit.
"Commanders, Chief Hunter. Welcome. First topic: Operation Victor-Set. Second: Pursuer Missiles."
All are attentive.
"To start: Operation Victor-Set. Target: The Cradle. Chief Hunter, we will need your forces. This isn't a raid. We intend to take the Cradle. We lack the numbers. You don't."
The Chief Hunter responds, "Why exactly should I devote troops to this?"
"Good question. Recall the neural-fighters. We did not stop with fighters. I'll get to Pursuer Missiles soon. We give tech, in exchange for troops."
"Go on, then. I'll decide how many Arxur, if any, to send once I know more."
I nod. "Missiles later. For now, squadron assignments. Massive operation. Squadrons organized into groups. Group Aeternus destroys defenses. Group Bellum will provide air support for the Chief Hunter. Group Caesar destroys cities, infrastructure. Finally, Squadron Xenophon-Pent has no group. It will target important enemy personnel. Everyone else: Group assignment is to be decided. Questions?"
Commander Terex asks, "How far out is this operation?"
"Unknown. Still waiting on the Chief Hunter's commitment of troops. Saving details until he's agreed."
Commander Michael looks up. "Will Group Caesar only include commanders and squadrons that volunteer?"
"Volunteers plus some neural-fighters. Unless not enough volunteers."
Chief Hunter Isif asks, "How much exactly are you depending on my troops for this?"
"Much. We aren't numerous. We stick to fighters and ships where we can. But we need infantry to take ground. If you don't provide, it will take longer. We'll wait for Commander Suarez to get us infantry."
"Commander Suarez could get you Arxur infantry?"
"No. Neural infantry."
A silence.
"Any other questions?"
There are none.
"Now, Pursuer Missiles. Commander Suarez?"
He stands. "Pursuer Missiles are an accident. While running genetic algorithms to design better fighters for space, we came across this."
He activates the screen. It shows a blueprint. A slim, narrow craft.
"That is a superluminal 'scout craft' of questionable utility. An accident of the genetic algorithm. However, it has a few properties of interest."
The screen changes. Reactor schematics.
"It has a uniquely compact reactor plus a great number of extending solar panels. Wildly insufficient to power weapons. But quite enough to send this light craft superluminal to a great distance."
View changes again.
"It also has life support systems. Systems we don't need now, thanks to neurals. If you replace those systems with explosives, and the pilot with a neural, you get this."
View change. A craft. Similar to the scout craft. But obviously made to be a missile.
"This is the Pursuer Missile. Pursuer Missiles follow their targets across the galaxy through lightspeed."
A theatrical pause. View switch. Engines.
"Though slower than most ships, Pursuer Missiles passively recharge thanks to the solar and don't require anywhere near as much power because of their size. The enemy can run, but he has to stop to refuel. This doesn't."
View shift. Exterior view again.
"Pursuer Missiles have the main vulnerability of being big compared to a normal missile. So we put much labor into making them hard to see and hard to shoot. They don't drop out of lightspeed until the very last moment. Furthermore, they have usual Severed Hand stealth shaping to make detecting them with scanners hard. This means that it is almost impossible for the enemy to know if he has a Pursuer Missile after him or not."
View change. A cloud of wreckage.
"This is the result of a test where we had a neural control a stolen Federation ship. The neural was given the goal of surviving as long as possible. We had a fighter throw a tracker on the ship and then sent out a prototype Pursuer Missile. The test ended as you can see, about three hundred light years away from the starting point."
I speak, "Thank you, Commander Suarez. Chief Hunter, these are your reason. Help at the Cradle, and you get a set."
A pause. Thinking.
"Very well, Admiral. You will have your troops."
The Severed Hand - 01 The Severed Hand - 03 The Severed Hand - 05

DC Next Proudly Presents:

THE FLASH

In On Two Fronts
Issue Thirty-Five: Running Wild
Written by AdamantAce
Edited by Deadislandman1
 
<< First Issue < Prev. Next Issue > Coming Next Month
 
 
Wally West's morning routine was nothing short of a whirlwind. He was up and dressed in a flash, literally, his movements a blur as he zipped into his clothes and was almost out the door when a familiar voice halted him mid-stride.
“Where do you think you’re going?” The question came not with accusation, but with a playful undertone.
Wally spun around, his momentum carrying a breeze that fluttered the nearby curtains, to find Rosie Dillon lounging on the couch, a steaming cup of coffee in hand. Her expression was a mix of amusement and affection.
He couldn't help but smile, his heart swelling a bit as he approached her. “Got a big day today, huh?” he teased, referring to her job interview.
Rosie nodded, her excitement palpable. “Yeah, and I'm going to nail it,” she declared with a confidence that made Wally's smile widen.
After a quick but tender kiss, during which he whispered an earnest “I love you”, Rosie gave him a nod, the unspoken signal that it was okay for him to resume his life at high speed. With another swift peck, Wally was out the door, the sound of it closing echoed faintly in the distance.
Once outside, Wally dialled back into the rest of the world. He returned a missed call from Ambassador Rhinebeck. One he should have known better than to miss.
“Ambassador!” he exclaimed as he connected and Grace Rhinebeck’s image appeared projected on his mask’s lenses. “Is everything alright?”
“Everything is fine, Flash,” she replied. “If there was a crisis in Doomtopia we would have sent someone for you.”
Wally winced at the name, but pressed on. “I know, but I don’t want you all to stop thinking you can rely on me.”
“We won’t, Flash.” There it was again. “You’re - pardon my expression - one of the good ones.”
As Wally raced through Gem City, the sprawling metropolis that had evolved from the merging of Central and Keystone, he took in the advanced architecture and bustling skyways once again. Flying cars never got old, especially when it left the roads clearer for the city’s friendly neighbourhood speedster. Still, their sleek innovations didn’t make up for the fumes they belched into the atmosphere. Wally frowned slightly; for all the technological advancements of the 25th century, some things seemed stubbornly stuck in the past.
Then, his musings were interrupted by another chime from his communicator. This time, it was a message from a scientist friend, beckoning him to the Flash Museum for a discussion on some Speed Force anomalies. It had been years since Wally was a walking Speed Force anomaly himself, which he figured gave him a unique insight. He quickly called his contact back.
“Should I be worried?” Wally asked brusquely. He didn’t mind skipping the pleasantries when he knew he’d be face-to-face with the man in less than a minute.
“Don't panic, just come by,”* the professor assured him. “I’ll explain everything.”
“Okay. On my way, Dr Thawne.”
 
🔻🔺 ⚡ 🔺🔻
 
Present Day
 
Morning light filtered through the blinds, casting a soft glow across the bedroom. Barry lay awake, the sheets pooled around his waist as he watched Patty sleep beside him. The rays of the sun played across her features, accentuating her peaceful expression. In that quiet moment, Barry couldn’t help but marvel at her, feeling a mix of exhilaration and apprehension. They had moved swiftly, rekindling their relationship with an intensity that was both thrilling and daunting. Yet, as he watched her, all he could think was how right it felt. They had navigated all of that teenage awkwardness years ago, Barry resolved, now they had begun to repair their cracked foundation they could speed things up all they pleased.
Patty stirred and blinked open her eyes, catching him halfway through changing into his shirt, his smile broad and unabashed.
“Morning,” she greeted, her voice groggy and husky.
“You know what my favourite thing about having super speed is?” she mused, sitting up. “Getting to sleep in and still get to work on time.”
With a playful flourish, she zipped around the room, a blur of motion that ended with her fully dressed in an instant. Barry watched, amused and slightly envious.
“That’s just an advanced Speed Force technique,” he chuckled, pulling on his last sock. “I’m never on time for anything. You’ll have to teach me that someday.”
“Maybe someday,” she quipped, a smirk playing on her lips.
Patty stepped closer, her expression softening. “Last night was wonderful, Barry. I can’t wait to do it again.”
“Next time, maybe we can eat out somewhere?” Barry suggested, hopeful.
“I’ll check my calendar after work,” she replied, leaning in to plant a quick kiss on his forehead. With another flash of speed, she was gone, her departure leaving a slight gust of wind that fluttered the curtains.
Barry stood alone in the quiet room, her absence already felt. Yet, the promise of what lay ahead left a warm feeling in his chest, a contrast to the cool morning air filtering through the window.
 
🔻🔺 ⚡ 🔺🔻
 
Red lightning crackled intensely around William West as he concentrated on harnessing the volatile energy. In the Speed Force Institute's training room, his quick, tight circles generated a powerful storm of energy, which he then attempted to direct with increasing precision. Each attempt to target the distant bullseye resulted in another charred mark on the walls or floor, the actual target remaining frustratingly intact.
Exhausted, he paused, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Just then, the doorway slid open with a hiss and Iris West, his aunt, stepped through. “I thought I’d find you here.”
William straightened up, surprised. “I didn't know you had access to this place.”
Iris chuckled lightly. “It’s one of the perks of being the Flash’s sister.”
She walked over to him, her heels clicking softly on the concrete floor. “How's the scholarship application going?” she inquired, her tone genuinely curious.
William's shoulders slumped slightly. “I... haven’t really started. Got a lot on my plate,” he admitted, expecting a lecture.
Instead, Iris simply nodded. “I can see that. And I've been checking the logs; you've been training hard, maybe too hard. You're doing fantastic, you know.”
He glanced at her, curious. “Did Barry tell you that?”
“No, but he does speak very highly of you,” Iris assured him with a warm smile. “Maybe spend some more time with him outside of this... training arena? Barry Allen's worth your time too, not just the Flash. He could help with your applications.”
William shifted uncomfortably, his desire to focus solely on avenging his parents battling with the practicality of what Iris was suggesting. “We train together all the time.”
“Yes, you and the Flash maybe, but there’s more to life than just training, William. Barry can help with your applications, and I'll help with essays and personal statements,” Iris encouraged firmly.
The proposal was tempting, grounding. William nodded slowly, a part of him eager for the normalcy it promised.
“And have you spoken to Detective Zolomon again lately?” Iris asked casually.
William's heart skipped. He had indeed been meeting with Zolomon, working on something far from what Iris would approve. “Yeah, we talked about a police internship,” he lied, “but I don’t think I’ll go for it. I don’t want to be a cop.”
A blur of red and gold streaked into the training room, announcing Barry’s arrival in his full Flash costume. “Hey, Iris! William!” he called out cheerfully as he skidded to a halt beside them.
Iris raised an eyebrow. “You seem better rested than I'd expect,” she commented, her tone teasing.
William cringed slightly at the innuendo. “Seriously?” he muttered, his expression a mix of amusement and mild disgust. It was weird enough thinking about his uncle in such a context.
Intent to move swiftly on, William turned to Barry with a more practical question. “Why are you still wearing the whole getup, Barry? Everyone already knows you’re the Flash. Why not train in your sweats?”
“Ah, I'm glad you asked, William. That's actually the focus of today's lesson!”
William rolled his eyes at the formality. “Lesson?” he echoed, not entirely hiding his scepticism.
Iris, still standing by, decided to intervene. “Barry, I was just telling William he should take a break. He’s been pushing himself pretty hard lately.”
William's response was quick and firm, reflecting a determination that belied his young age. “I’m fine! Let’s just continue with the training,” he insisted.
Iris studied him for another moment, yet seeing the resolve in William's eyes, she nodded slowly. “Okay, but don’t overdo it,” she cautioned, her voice soft but stern.
“Promise,” William replied, a slight smile breaking through as he turned back to Barry, ready for whatever lesson his uncle had in store.
Convinced, if not entirely comfortable, Iris gave them both one last look before turning and exiting the training room. Her steps echoed faintly as she left, the door hissing shut behind her, leaving William and Barry alone in the vast, equipment-laden space.
“Alright,” Barry clapped his hands together, the sound sharp in the quiet room. “Let’s get started then. There’s a lot more to these suits than just identity protection. It covers my face, sure, but it also shields my body. The fabric is a lightweight fibre that doesn't impede speed yet absorbs the impact of hits, scrapes, and even some forms of energy blasts.”
William's brow furrowed in confusion. “But doesn’t the Speed Force protect speedsters from most of those things?”
Barry nodded. “The Speed Force does minimise the effects of friction, preventing us from igniting when we run through the wind. It offers some protection against other forces too, but it’s not all-encompassing, especially when you're up against supervillains like the Reverse Flash." The mention of the Reverse Flash sharpened William's focus instantly, likely Barry’s exact intention.
Barry continued, “Not to mention: the suit is skintight. We already don’t worry about drag, thanks to the Speed Force, but loose fabric can still be a nuisance. A streamlined design helps prevent any self-sabotage from tripping or fabric interference."
Half-joking, William asked, "So does this mean I’ve got to get myself my own full-body condom if I want to run like you?"
Barry laughed softly and extended his hand, holding something small and metallic. “No need.” He handed it to William who took it, examining the titanium ring engraved with the iconic Flash lightning bolt.
“This is...?” William began but trailed off, a profound awe colouring his tone.
“Max’s Flash Ring,” Barry replied with reverence for the fallen hero.
The significance wasn't lost on William. He slipped the ring onto his left middle finger, marvelling at how it seemed to be a perfect fit. Barry, smiling, did not mention the nanotechnology that adapted its size.
Removing his scarlet glove, Barry revealed a similar ring of gold. He demonstrated how to activate it by pressing a hidden button. William, filled with curiosity and a bit of nervous excitement, pressed the button on his ring.
In a blur, the costume shot out, rapidly expanding. In that moment, Barry placed his hand on William’s shoulder and pulled them both into Flashtime - the speedsters’ slowed down perception of reality - allowing them both to witness the unfolding of the suit in slow motion. There, William watched the dramatic unfurling of silver fabric accented with black and highlighted with red lightning bolts streaking across the chest.
However, as the Flashtime ended and reality snapped back to its regular pace, William, still caught up in the spectacle, failed to step into the suit. It fell to the floor with a comical slap, lying fully expanded yet unoccupied.
Barry chuckled at the sight, the sound echoing slightly in the spacious training room. “Looks like today's real lesson is how to suit up at super speed,” he said, amused. “Trust me, nobody wants to catch a speedster half-dressed and struggling into their costume.”
William, slightly embarrassed but more amused like his uncle, nodded, his earlier frustrations momentarily forgotten in the novelty of his new gear and the trust Barry was extending him with their prized possession of Max’s.
 
🔻🔺 ⚡ 🔺🔻
 
Wally West sat at the desk in his bedroom, the muted glow of his laptop illuminating scattered research notes for his engineering assignment. The tabs open on his screen offered little of interest, a stark reminder of the mundane aspects of a lot of education. Yet, beneath this veneer of academic normality, Wally harboured secrets that stretched the boundaries of time itself.
From the bottom drawer of his desk, he retrieved a sleek metal disk, a futuristic device incongruous with his surroundings. Placing it carefully on the desk, he pressed the centre. Immediately, it came alive with a soft blue glow, projecting a hologram of intricate car engine schematics into the air. The design was from the 25th century, tantalisingly advanced yet disappointingly close to modern capabilities. Wally pondered how he could integrate this knowledge into his paper without causing a ripple through the timeline.
His curiosity piqued, Wally's fingers hesitated over another button on the disk. Yielding to temptation, he pressed it. The engine's blueprint vanished, replaced by a holographic newspaper front page, the headline in bold.
FLASH DIES IN CRISIS.
It was the same page that had haunted Barry, stored in the time vault by the adult Bart Allen. The date and details shifted with each viewing, a morbid reminder of a mutable future tethered by a seemingly constant event: the Flash's death.
“Bart... where are you?” Wally murmured, lost in thought. He knew a teenage Bart Allen - Barry’s future grandson - had been hopping through time, training under every Flash. The young Bart who had made a brief visit to the 25th century had hinted at dire events, and clearly was fixated on this headline by the time he reached adulthood. In the present day, it had been years since Bart had covertly trained under Jay Garrick, and then Max Crandall. Everything he knew about Barry’s future fate, and the Reverse Flash’s machinations pointed to Bart and the complex tapestry of his history. He was overdue for a partnership with Barry, but when he did rear his head he would answer Wally with exactly what was going on. Bart was the key, he was certain.
The unsettling silence of the room was abruptly shattered. “Feeling nervous, West?” The voice, distorted and chillingly familiar, immediately made Wally’s blood run cold.
Spinning around, Wally faced the nightmare he had hoped to avoid. The Reverse Flash stood mere feet away, his red eyes gleaming malevolently, his features obscured by his rapidly vibrating form.
A surge of energy exploded between them, red and yellow lightning crackling wildly as they launched into a frenetic dash around the room. The chase spilled into the street, an eruption of speed and power that blurred the lines of the residential area around them.
“Everything is already in motion,” the Reverse Flash taunted as they circled each other, his voice a sinister echo in the whirlwind. “You and your light touch approach to timeline surgery can't stop it. I’ve already tried, with blunter instruments!”
Where have you been!?” Wally demanded, breathless from the shock of the encounter. The Reverse Flash had been absent since the chaos at Patty and Barry's wedding, his whereabouts a mystery. All the while, the Flash Family feared the day he would reappear.
The villain's reply was cryptic, tinged with dark amusement. *“The so-called ‘Legion of Doom’ has shifted its priorities. I check in, but I’ve been busy setting up the dominoes.”’ *
Wally gritted his teeth. If he wanted riddles he would have headed off to Gotham.
“Besides… you should know where I've been…” The dark speedster sneered, taunting the previously future-flung Wally.
Both came to a stop in the middle of the street, each just staring the other down.
“So what do you want?” Wally's cry was a mix of defiance and desperation. “You’ve messed with Barry enough.”
First, the Reverse Flash merely laughed.
“What?” Wally balled his hands into fists.
“Barry Allen is right where I want him,” the foe replied. “Right now, you’re the thorn in my side. I'm not going to let you mess everything up.”
The Reverse Flash charged forward with immense speed, and Wally reacted on impulse. At first, Wally was sprinting away, the evil speedster in hot pursuit as their surroundings were reduced to a blur. But as the Reverse Flash overtook him, Wally instead found himself the pursuer, chasing the family’s tormentor towards Keystone City, each step a desperate bid to unravel the threat before him and protect those he loved.
 
 
Next: Shatter in The Flash #36
 

S-V: Echo-01
Blaze looks around the halls of Echo-01 as he walks towards the bridge to assume command of the ship. As he walks down corridors. he can't help but feel a sense of awe.
The walls hum lightly, and the faint scent of ozone hangs in the air.
The hangar outside abuzz with activity as the Titanic sized spacecraft is prepared for it's first faster than light trials.
As Blaze approaches the massive bridge, he notices the advanced technology integrated into every surface. The control panels seeming to pulse with the hum of the ship.
Looking closer he can see the complex algorithms running in real-time.
The former captain greets him at the entrance on his way off ship. "If it isn't the demon slayer in the flesh. Sad to say. Noone to fight like you're used to but should still get your heart going.... Good luck out there."
Blaze chuckles. "Yeah, not really my type of thing. It's a mission tho. Earth's been quiet enough that they sent me here..." Blaze's sleek almost paper thin wrist strap like device chimes. "Oh... Gotta cut it short. It was nice seeing you again Jack." He says as they nod before parting.
A gruff man greets him as his conversation finishes. "Welcome aboard. I trust you're ready for this historic journey?"
Blaze holds out his hand catching him off guard.
Taking his hand the man smiles. "Well, they did say he was different." The man thinks as they shake.
Blaze nods, his face a mix of determination and excitement. "Ready or not, it's a new thing for me. 10 minutes to launch.... Let's get this ship moving." He says moving to the command seat, his fingers dancing over the keys with a practiced ease. The hum of the engines increases, and the ship begins to vibrate slightly. After a few minutes a warmth passes by like a phantom filling the area.
The comms come to life as the new quantum systems keep the ship connected to HQ.
Blaze takes control of the ship, feels it respond to his touch on the flight sticks. The sensation of power surges through him as he manipulates the various thumb touch controls for sensors and guides the Echo-01 into its maiden voyage.
Tho he is quick to notice that everyone had left the hanger rather quickly.
Exiting the moon base's hanger through its cold plasma field Blaze angles the ship toward the first checkpoint. "Ok, warp core control, power for. 20% light speed and slowly bring us up to reach 50%. Keep an eye on the warp core. If it goes smoothly transfer control to my console but monitor closely. If things go bad it's my hand they can blame."
The crew exchanges surprised glances as they go about their duty
Several minutes later the ship is 20 million miles from the moon staying on it's dark side. Blaze watches the controls intently, his eyes darting from one readout to another. As he navigates the ship through space, he can't help but feel a sense of responsibility for the lives on board.
The journey so far uneventful he knows that they are venturing into the unknown.
Pulling back the warp core power output the ship slows and Blaze pushes a few commands on his console. The computers start to survey the sky with sensors and optics, it's images and data putting hubble and JWST to shame in mere seconds..... A clear path being calculated prior to the warp attempt.
The A.I finishes its calculations, and the ship's systems go into standby mode. Blaze takes a deep breath, his hand resting lightly on the left flight stick a moment.
He turns to address the crew, his voice projecting on the intercoms clearly throughout the ship.
"Alright everyone, It's time. Just awaiting the go ahead from HQ." The crew members, who had been silently observing Blaze's movements, nod in unison. There's a sense of anticipation and nervousness in the air as they await confirmation. The ship vibrations seem to intensify as seconds tick by.
The ship wide comms break the humming silence. "Project Echo has the green light. Commence warp to the Alpha Centauri star system." Blaze nods, his fingers dancing across the console. Grabbing the controls he pushes the left stick forward.
The ship shudders slightly as the warp bubble forms around it, distorting the space-time continuum as a disorienting sensation washes over them.
Blaze holds up his hands feeling as if a flowing magnetic cushion surrounds his body. "So that's what 1 sun's worth of pure energy per second feels like burrowing through dimensions we can't reach... No wonder so many didn't want to be in charge. I'll take this over explosions and combat."
He looks out at the simulated stars streaking past as the ship accelerates towards its destination.
Despite the disorienting feeling of the warp bubble, there's a sense of awe and wonder that fills him. "This is it, the beginning of humanity's journey into the stars." He thinks looking over at one of the researchers...
Just 4.5 seconds later they arrive at Alpha Centauri.
The ship arrives in the triple star system as it waits silently glistening in the star speckled yet engulfing darkness of space. Dropping to the star systems velocity, the ship sheds it's warp field with an anomalous burst of energy.
Proxima Centauri 8 light minutes away reacts to the strange burst of energy as it continues at 1.5 lys per second without the ship's warp core.
Blaze looks at the star through the filtered windshield as its deeper layers are exposed to space bursting into space.... "Well, that's a new one... oh hey, what you do today... Oh nothing just blew up a star and ruined part of the night sky.... Oh no..." He thinks... "That was like a sonic boom so... What's behind us?" He wonders.
"Scanners to the rear immediately." He orders.
Looking at the quantum sensors he sees the first burst losing energy and speed rapidly till it vanishes. As the crew stares in awe at the incredible sight before them, he calmly navigates the ship towards its designated arrival location.
20 seconds after arriving, suddenly an alarm goes off on the console. "Incoming radiation of 3,000 Exaelectron volts." The ship's A.I says just as the high energy wave passes by and dissipates.
There's a bright flash and intense heat that's gone in an instant.
Blaze feels around as he keeps calm. Every person on the ship blinded by the flash. Blaze turns to the bridge crew, his voice calm yet urgent. "Stay put until we can assess the situation. Looks like we've picked up some unexpected cargo. A.I analyze the radiation."
The ship's systems kick into high gear as the A.I begins to process the data from the radiation scan.
Blaze shakes his head. "Are we even alive right now.... Cause 3000 exa electron volts... Most powerful to hit Earth was 340 or so and that's millions of times more powerful than a particle accelerator..." He says out loud as his vision begins to return.
Blaze steadies himself. "Echo 1 schematic view, damage report." He feels himself say but barely hears.
A schematic view of the ship appears on the console, showing no visible outer damage. The internal damage report at first confirms that all systems are online and functioning within normal parameters but one.
As his hearing starts to recover he can make out the ships A.I.
"Alert. Increase in heat emissions from the engine core...." It pauses calculating... "Suggested course of action, complete core shutdown and reactivation."
Blaze sits back in his chair as the whole bridge looks his way.
A woman with short red hair and almost glowing gold brown eyes moves over to him. "So we fix the core." She says.
Blaze sits forward. "Jane, are you trying to be a smartass. Cause you know that takes... Opening the warp core containment to stop it's energy production... With a device that is back on the moon, 4.2 light years away...."
Blaze looks at the rest of the crew, their faces flushed and sweaty from the intense heat of the radiation wave. The ship's cooling working hard to return the temperature to normal.
He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves as he considers their options while Jane storms off going to her quarters.
"One thing at time..." He says as another alarm sounds... "Uh... And I can't even shoot anything." He thinks.
Looking at the schematics it zooms in on several small modular sensors around the ship that shorted out during their idle test phase.
"You're joking right?... Of all the sensors, we lose the forward facing quantum scanner's..." He says tossing his stress ball.
The A.I responds. " I lack software for humor and sarcasm... Radiation report complete.... Residual levels comparable to a commercial flight within the atmosphere on Earth and fading." Blaze sighs.
He looks to the side viewing window at the star in the distance and the nova expanding from its location. "Okay, let's get to work," Blaze says, rallying the crew. "We have a ship to fix and a mission to complete. We can't afford any more setbacks."
Finishing the meeting in minutes he sits down in his seat.
The crew, now fully aware of what's needed they spring into action. Blaze watches as their focus on repairing the damaged sensors and readying the ship for its next mission impress him.
He takes a moment to himself, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes as he tries to clear his mind. After a few minutes he decides to walk the ship and finds himself standing at the observation window looking into the warp core without realizing it.
Just then Jane steps beside him. "What is it anyway?" She asks looking at the pulsing sphere of energy.
He lets his forehead rest on the window. "No clue. All I know is it's some kind of element. 115. Usually unstable but the aliens that helped design it gave the ability to stabilize and use it." He says.
Jane looks at the warp core, her eyes narrowing as she contemplates the magnitude of the energy being contained within the small sphere. "So it's like a power source for the ship's warp drive. Pretty impressive tech, if you ask me." She says....
Blaze looks at her. "Why are you being like that?" He asks. Jane shrugs, a small smirk playing on her lips. "I'm just saying, it's cool. And we get to use alien tech to make this ship go faster than light. That's pretty damn cool if you ask me." She replies, her tone lightening up a bit.
Blaze sighs. " Just stop. What's your issue with the tech this time?" Jane rolls her eyes. "Nothing, I just think it's kind of neat is all. Don't get your panties in a bunch." She says with a playful smirk.
"Fine, whatever," Blaze replies, waving her off dismissively.
Her expression grows more serious. "Not like it's doing the same thing I said it would or anything. You were one of my biggest critics so.. should I have to tell you."
Blaze draws in a breath... "There are several things missing. If you were right, it wouldn't be so calm in there. Besides your gut feeling. Isn't gonna find what science couldn't."
She glares at him. "Fine, don't listen to me." She says.
He's about to respond when she hands something to him and walks away. For a moment the warmth of core is overpowered as a chill runs through him and his breath catches in his throat.
He looks back at the warp core, thinks of all the secret missions and tests as he slips the ring into his pocket.
The test ship Echo-01 continues to hum along, the warp core pulsing with energy as it powers the ship's systems. Blaze stands by the window, her words still echoing in his ears. He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves before continuing his work on the ship.
Re-entering the bridge he sits in his seat as he ignores the crews odd behavior.
As Blaze sits there, he feels a slight vibration beneath him. He looks around, noticing that the crew members are acting a bit off, their movements stiff and unnatural. A cold sweat forms on his back as he realizes what might be happening. Closing his eyes he calms himself. "Mark, to the bridge... To assume command immediately." He says over the ships comms.
Every one in the bridge looks back at him in surprise. Mark, a seasoned captain, strides confidently onto the bridge, his eyes darting around as he takes in the situation. He moves swiftly to the central command chair and sits down, his hands moving deftly over the controls. "Report," he barks out, his voice stern.
Another crewmember approaches Blaze as he exists the bridge to head to his quarters. "Sir, are you ok... Its. It's just odd given your history with Mark." The man says.
Blaze takes a deep breath and nods. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little on edge, that's all. Thanks for the concern." He replies, trying to dismiss the crew member's concerns....
...
...
As he enters his quarters, he can't shake the feeling that something isn't right. As he lays back on his bed his mind swims in a deep, dark dread and pressure....
...
...
Jane looks from her station to Mark. "Simulation of the Abnormality in the core room." She says as a hologram appears and she hesitates a moment.
The scene of the square viewing room as her and Blaze stand outlined by the sensor data.
Pressing play they all watch as she walks away out of the sensor range. The warp core energy stable, until... A mass of energy breaks away blasting into the viewing room surrounding Blaze. . . .

Chapter 2 part 1
Alex
12/31/2045: Guess I’m back where I started
It’s been almost a day since Nar and I escaped and we haven’t heard anything from his crew. Luckily letting “him” take over took quite a bit out of me, so I've been asleep for most of it. When I woke up Nar let me know about our situation which made me realize right now I’m exactly where I was before. At least I have someone to talk to… sort of. Ever since we escaped I got the feeling Nar has been itching to ask me some questions. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I knew what about. After I regained control on the bridge Nar was there watching me, I’m not sure for how long though I could guess it was long enough
“Hay Nar, can you tell me a bit about your crew?”
“Huh? Why?”
“Well, I would like to know the kind of people I’m about to meet. This will be the second time I’m brought aboard a stranger ship and I’m not exactly batting a hundred here” This was only partly true. In reality, I am just trying to prevent him from asking questions about what happened
After pondering my request he decided to humor me, probably wanting to break the awkward silence.
“Fair enough. Alright well, I’m not sure what to say. We currently have 11 members including myself. They're a rowdy bunch but they're good people. Our captain is named Elith, she may be a stern woman but she has earned the complete respect of everyone on board, you won’t find anyone on board who wouldn’t follow her to hell and back. We have a doctor named Uvo along with his sister Arora who is our cook. Word for the wise be careful around her because Uvo can be quite overprotective, but he will fix you after breaking you”
He spoke that last part as if from experience as he rubbed his shoulder
“We have a couple of engineers named Dura and Vulin. They are good at what they do and in all my years of traveling with them have left no room for doubt in their abilities. Vulin has a twin sister named Pyria, she is our navigator and practically lives on the bridge. Recently we had a researcher named Zeno come aboard, He’s a curious one but is quite enjoyable and useful when it comes to locating goods and where best to sell them. Kurz and Saph are in charge of the cargo bay, kurz manages it while Saph helps out. While all of our crew are competent fighters we have an ex-merc named Ulder who runs security.”
“Wait if you have security personnel and the rest are competent fighters then how did you still end up captured? Did you just refuse to let them even try to save you or something?”
He didn’t answer for a while, he didn’t need to, his face said it all. “I didn’t want to risk getting them captured or killed when I could just give myself up instead”
“Something tells me they won’t see it like that”
He propped his head on his fist as he turned back to look through the large viewport at the front of the pod “… you're probably right”
I was going to start messing with him by talking about what kind of retribution his crew might have in store for us when the pod began to fill with a blinding light. Squinting, I could barely make out the rough shape of two giant doors beginning to open. A moment later the pod lurched to life and began moving toward the structure. Nar fidgeted with the rifle he had taken as we grew closer to the ship before finally landing with an audible crash.
The pod opened with a hiss as the two pressures equalized. Exiting through the opened hatch I was greeted by the sight of metal crates neatly stacked on all sides, each grouping tucked behind light blue rayshilds that were just strong enough to prevent the magnetized boxes from falling. The whole area was well-lit by overhead lights, spanning the length of the room. Dozens of rows of boxes filled the whole space. Where two rows of crates met was a large dedicated pathway leading to a single door at the end of the room.
Nar led the way down the makeshift hall toward the door as I continued to take in the sights. Similarly to the pirates, there were crates of various sizes. The difference was that each was labeled, showing off various goods. They had everything from art to medicine. Moving further down I noticed some didn’t sound quite… legal. Herbs that even with my limited knowledge I could tell were used for more recreational purposes, weapons that had been outlawed by most governments, parts for military-grade explosives, and even an entire crate of false IDs and papers.
“Hay Nar… what was it you said you guys do again?”
“Why do you ask?” he responded without turning to look at me
“Oh no reason in particular, just curious”
He pressed a button on the door panel, and slowly the door began to slide to the left as he faced me to answer, the light gleaming off one of his tusks
“We’re smugglers”
Right as the door finished opening Nar was immediately tackled. For a long while the glob of what looked to be hands, feathers, and tails continued to pin the poor Rall to the ground. When the dust settled he was being held down by 5 people holding onto him for dear life, cheering, laughing, and crying tears of joy. I could tell at least 4 of them were Rotis but I was taken aback at the sight of the girl wrapped around his neck
She was wearing a red hoodie with a pair of grey sweats, the faint smell of cooking oils wafting from her as if she had just rushed here from the kitchen. I almost mistook her for a human till I noticed what looked like feathers protruding from under her jacket.
“Your back!” The mystery girl said still clinging to his neck tight enough that I thought he might start to suffocate
“About time old man, beginning to think you finally bit the dust,” someone said from the doorway. His black feathers and white hair along with the look of death in his blood-read eyes gave him quite the sinister appearance.
That must be a Celean, but I thought they were supposed to look like colorful angels, this dude looks more like the Grim Reaper
“Oh shut up Uvo. Don’t mind him, he missed you too” the girl retorted still choking out Nar
Nar chuckled and gently removed her arms from his neck before becoming a bit more serious
“Umm… where’s the captain?”
“She’s on her way, she wanted to make sure no one was following us,” said a female Celean walking past Uvo. She looked amused at the situation as she reached Nar's side and held out a hand to help him up. With a smile he took it and was immediately hoisted back onto his feet, knocking the others back onto the floor.
“Thank’s Dura, I hope things haven't been too rowdy while I was gone,” he says patting the much smaller celean on the shoulder
“If by rowdy do you mean peaceful” Uvo muttered from the doorway.
The others began to berate him for his comment while Nar and Dura laughed at the commotion, all the tension I didnt even realize he had was slowly melting away. Further past the door, faint footsteps could be heard, slowly growing louder as whatever it was stomped its way toward us. I cast a concerned glance at Nar, who was watching with bated breath.
When the footsteps finally came to a head, a beautiful and pissed-off Ashen marched through the door. Her skin was a sun-kissed orange that blended with her long ginger hair that had been tied neatly into a ponytail, her feline ears poking on the top of her head. She wore a vibrant blue overcoat, trimmed with gold and decorated with several brass buttons. The coat was open, revealing a plain white shirt tucked neatly into her leather pants that let her tail lash around agitatedly. Forgoing shoes, seemingly preferring to have her paws unimpeded.
Stepping in close to Nar she wailed him in the gut with enough force to crumple him over.
“You giant vial offspring of a Gundark. You got a lot of nerve, what the hell took you so long to contact us?” she yelled as Nar tried to recover, her voice was filled with anger but slowly began to waver the longer she went on.
“Im sorry” He started to say, having finally recovered from her initial attack, but was cut off when she suddenly drew him into a hug
“Do you know how worried I… we were?” her voice, barely a whisper, as Nar pulled her in closer, her head nestling under his chin
“I know”
“THEN WHY DID YOU LEAVE!?” she exploded, her anger now back in full force, launching herself square into his chin, knocking him back to the ground.
Lying flat on his back, the Ashen jumped on top of him getting ready to give him another piece of her mind. Probably realizing he was fighting a losing battle he looked up to me “Alex, a little help”
Trying to suppress my amusement I shook my head “Sorry pal, im not nearly brave enough to get involved in this” Knowing he would get no assistance from me he closed his eyes, appearing to accept his fate. In the corner of my eye, I could see the others in the room shift, soon I realized they were all staring at me
Well… this might get a little awkward
I watched the Ashen recoil off Nar when she also finally realized I was there. Recomposing herself, she straightened her posture and wiped off her clothes before finally speaking “Nar… who is this?”
I scan the other's faces as Nar begrudgingly sat up. Their expressions ranged from curiosity to unease.
“This is Alex” he waved a hand in my direction “He was captured by those cutthroats a while after me. It’s thanks to him that we managed to escape”
“Dont sell yourself short, I never would have made it if I didnt have you to back me up and arrange an actual escape” I had the feeling something deep down scoffed at my declaration, I quickly moved to mentally bury it deeper
“Ah, well, in any case, I think thanks are in order,” she said in a professional tone, letting her stance relax. However, she still eyed me like I was a wild animal that snuck into her house.
“My name is Elith, captain of this ship. On behalf of myself and my crew, I thank you for saving one of our own”
“It was no trouble, I’m just happy to be off that ship and moving again”
“Be that as it may I am still obligated to show our appreciation. So for the time being you will be our guest. I'll have a room prepared for you, feel free to wash up in the meantime, being covered in that much blood can't be good for your health”
I examined myself and realized the extent of my loss of control
That’s probably why they are so wary of me, I mean I sure as shit would be concerned if someone who looked like the monster in a slasher film randomly showed up in my home
“Arora,” the captain said, regaining my attention “would you please show our guest where the shower is while I have Dura find him a room”
Arora gave me a smile and gestured for me to follow. Just as I was about to follow her I noticed the captain pull in Dura and whisper something to her. A moment later she gave her a nod and followed us through the door, leaving me with an uneasy feeling.
Chapter 2 Part 2
Alex
The halls were eerily similar to the pirates, which made sense since most modern ships followed similar designs, but it was still unnerving. It appeared most of the lower deck was designated to cargo and ship supplies with the far back near the stairs housing maintenance supplies and access hatches. Walking up the steps we entered a new hall with several doors on both sides spanning the entire length of the hall.
A few of the doors were open revealing rooms belonging to individual crew members rather than group housing. Each room was decorated in wildly different ways. While one was filled with schematics and drafting equipment another was covered in a wide variety of plants and greenery.
The only thing that caught my attention more than the unusual decoration choices was the occasional glance I would catch Arora throwing my way. She looked at me with such intensity that didn’t match the fake smile she was wearing. But despite whatever her feelings were towards me she couldn’t meet my eyes, instead flinching each time I caught her before quickly turning back just to repeat the process a few seconds later
Tired of this game and annoyed at the growing silence I tried to lighten the mood
“So how long have you known Nar?”
No response
“He mentioned you were the ship cook, must be difficult preparing food for multiple different species”
She simply nodded without saying anything. Never dropping her smile
Disappointed at the lack of conversation I tried a different approach
“This is just an observation but I get the feeling you don’t like me”
This got a reaction. Arora suddenly stopped, visibly shaken at the accusation. It was at that moment I realized she wasn’t suppressing anger, she was suppressing fear
“What makes you say that” she questioned, her voice surprisingly composed compared to how the rest of her was reacting
“It isn’t hard to tell when someone is forcing a smile. The only question I have yet to answer is whether it’s because I'm a stranger, or because I'm human”
She shivered at my last remark, pretty much telling me which it was. As if she knew I had guessed correctly she quickly tried to explain herself
“It’s not that I dislike humans, it’s more like… I’m weary of them. We travel a lot and even though they are relatively new they already have quite a reputation”
This was news to me. Sure I knew some of us had already managed to sneak past the borders but I didn’t think it was enough to be noticeable
“What all have you heard about us?”
Arora took a breath before finally being able to look me in the eyes “Like how they have spent most of their existence killing one another, how they throw themselves from conflict to conflict, and how most of the said conflicts are more gruesome than almost any other races most intense war” as she continues I noticed her demeanor change from fear to something resembling grim acceptance “I’ve heard stories of your gangs committing atrocities that would make mass murders blush and on top of that not only do they have the ability to expand past their borders they have a dense enough population that no one could hold them back if they decided to end their agreement” she took a deep breath, all the fear having evaporated “we may get into our fair share of conflicts but we don’t go looking for them, but if even half of what I’ve heard is true then it sounds like having a human on board is just asking for it”
Honestly, I was a little taken aback, it had been quite some time since someone spoke exactly what was on their mind rather than dancing around it to try and soften the blow, really it was refreshing. I couldn’t help but admire her blunt honesty but that didn’t help me come up with a response.
Probably seeing the shock on my face she let out a small sigh as she turned to continue down the hall “But to your credit, you did save Nar’s life and he seems to trust you. So I’ll trust his judgment”
I followed her in silence till she finally stopped outside a door about halfway down the hall. Pressing a button on an adjacent panel the door slid open revealing a small room. The left wall was taken up by a large shower with a small sink placed on the other side. Walking in I noticed a washer and dryer placed just past the sink with a closet sitting neatly in between the dryer and the corner of the wall.
Walking past me she opened the closet and pulled out a towel as well as a change of clothes that looked like they were made for humans till I noticed two slits in the back that were probably meant for celean wings.
“You can change into these when you’re done, I’m sure my brother won’t mind sharing till your clothes get cleaned” She glanced at my tattered and blood-soaked clothes “If they can get cleaned”
She set them on the counter and walked back out, just before closing the door I caught her giving me one last worried glance as the door shut
I took the journal from my pocket, more than a little relieved to see it was undamaged, and placed it on the counter next to the change of clothes. Turning on the shower I began attempting to peel off my clothes, the blood having fastened them to my skin, made it a little uncomfortable but before long I threw them in the wash and stepped into the shower while it did its job. As soon as the water hit my body I could feel the stress and fatigue I hadn’t even realized I'd been carrying start to wash away along with the blood and grime.
I stood there for a while, letting the water run all along my body, but my mind inevitably wandered to what Arora had said, about how humans were already so feared despite not many of us being out here. What she heard was true, there was no denying that, but there is also more to us than just violence
If I’m being honest I don’t know why I care what she thinks of humanity, it’s not like I’ll be here long and once I leave I doubt we will ever meet again. But that look of fear in her eyes, how could I claim I’ve changed if I leave things as they are?
“Well there is one thing I can do”
Alex
Chapter 2 part 3
After drying off I changed into the clothes Arora had been kind enough to lend me. Now dressed and no longer soaked in blood I felt refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to get to work. I had come up with a simple but hopefully effective plan. Basically, if I could get her to spend some time with me I could give her a different impression of humanity.
Finally ready I opened the door where I was surprised to see Arora waiting for me. “Have you been standing there this whole time?”
“No… maybe, you sure took your time”
“Let me guess, you didnt want to leave the dangerous human unattended, right?”
“Captain wanted me to take you to the bridge after you got yourself cleaned up. She wants to plan our next move and for some reason wants your input”
Not wanting to keep my host waiting I nodded and followed her down to the very end of the hall to a similar pair of large double doors just like the pirates. The doors opened as we drew closer, allowing starlight to shine through from the large glass dome that encased the entire room. Just in front of the door sat a large chair, I assumed was for the captain, that overlooked all the ship's control consols and was sat in front of a large rectangular table where Nar and the others were gathered around.
As we approached the others made room, allowing us to join them. Not including us there were 10 others gathered around the table with us appearing to be the last to arrive.
“Alright now that our guest has arrived we can get this meeting started,” the captain said, getting up from her seat “First, seeing as now the whole crew is present, I feel introductions are in order. Everyone this is Alex, Alex this is my crew. The two Ralls are Nar and Kurz, the Rotis with the dark red skin is Vulin and his sister Pyra is next to him. The Rotis covered in scars is ulder, and the one that looks like she just crawled out of a furnace is Saph, while the one shaking from excitement uncontrollably is Zeno. You’ve already met Arora, this is her brother Uvo and beside him is Dura. And lastly, there's myself Elith Tavakar, but you may just call me captain”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for your hospitality”
“Now that pleasantries are out of the way, let's get down to business. During Nara's capture, we suffered quite a bit of damage to our ship’s hull and some critical systems, namely our weapons controls and shields”
“What?!! You guys have been traveling around with essentially no way to defend yourself for weeks?!!” Nar shouted
“I’m sorry, we were a little busy looking for some obnoxious muscle head, who was too stubborn to call for help or even try to let us know where he was!!” Elith retorted, shutting him up “Like I was saying, the damage is too great to fix right now so we will need to stop and make repairs as well as refresh our supplies. The closest settlement is Everan, we can stop there. Alex, Nar was telling me you are on a pilgrimage, correct?”
“Yes that’s correct, that’s why I left the human territory”
“Well then once we arrive we can help you procure a new shuttle or at the very least find a ship that will take you where you need to go. Everan is a trading outpost so you're bound to find something that will suit your needs”
“Thank you, I am quite eager to get moving again”
“Then it’s decided. We’re a little over a day’s travel away, for now, feel free to explore the ship. Arora can you keep an eye on our guest for a bit longer” The captain's face was hard to read but what was unmistakable was the glint of pity she gave Arora when she asked her to keep watching over me. I’m going to assume it’s because she knows Arora is frightened of me and not because the captain herself might not like humans.
“Of course captain, it would be my pleasure”
A light growl drew my attention to Uvo, whose expression was anything but pity. His eyes were trained on me, his red pupils searing their image into my mind. Every inch of him was stiff and emitting danger. My hand instinctively reached for my hip, only to grip empty air. Luckily before anything could happen the captain dismissed us and we were sent on our way.
Everyone began filing out into the halls one by one with Arora and I bringing up the rear. I slowed down to get some distance between us and the rest of the crew. When they were far enough away I stopped Arora
“Listen, I’ve been thinking about what you said before, and I wish I could say that what you’ve heard were just rumors and that you don't need to worry about us but I won’t lie to you, we have a violent history that continues to this day in various degrees, I myself have seen my fair share of bloodshed. However, what I can tell you is that we aren't all fire and brimstone. There is plenty left to humanity if you are willing to look.”
She seemed skeptical but didn't walk away, hopefully meaning she was still willing to hear me out
“Let me prove it. We have a day till we reach our destination right? Well how about using that time to get to know a real human then decide for yourself if we’re evil or not”
She looked me in the eyes as I held my breath. I swear I could almost hear the gears begin to turn in her head. “So I can ask anything, and you’ll answer honestly?” she finally said “What’s in it for you?”
“I want to learn more about what the rest of the galaxy is like, small tidbits of information get to Earth but not enough to make an informed voyage, this could be my last chance to learn anything useful before i'm back on my own again,” I said a little relieved she was open to the idea “besides, it would be nice to have some company. I have a feeling Nar will be a bit preoccupied for a while”
“Well, the captain did ask me to show you around and keep an eye on you” She let out a defeated sigh and then held out her hand “Alright it’s a deal”
Shaking her hand I smiled at her “Thanks, so where to first?”
“Well since your room isn’t quite ready yet, I figure I would take you to the lounge. It’s got a nice view and since no one uses it, it’ll be a good place to keep you out of trouble”
“Perfect, lead the way”
We walked from the bridge down the hall and stopped just past the showers. Walking into the new room, I was a little surprised at how big it was. It was almost double the size of the bedrooms we passed, with a more open concept. The area was decorated with a sofa placed directly in front of a TV on my right, a large rug that took up most of the room's floor, and a series of cabinets along the wall to my left that connected to a table that formed a large L-shaped workspace. Lastly just past the table on the opposite wall were two bookshelves filled with a variety of topics. Bringing the whole room together was a large window that took up a large part of the wall, greeting everyone who entered with a beautiful starry landscape.
“About this settlement we're heading to, have you ever visited it before?”
“A couple of times, it's a remote settlement out in the middle of nowhere which makes it a nice rest stop for people who want to keep a low profile like us”
“Sounds lovely, anything I should know about it?”
“Nothing that I can think of, the wealthier residents can be a bit stuck up but if you ignore them they won't cause any problems. They prefer to indulge themselves in their art and sculptures” The last sentence seemed a bit mockery
“I take it you're not a fan. Are there exhibits that bad”
“Hard to appreciate any of it when you're constantly being belittled by the artists for lacking the cultural refinement to truly understand the piece”
Having gotten my fill of the stars I moved from the rug to the back of the couch next to Arora. “Sounds like you’ve got a story”
“You could say that. A while back we were hired by a wealthy resident to take him on a voyage around the neighboring system. The job lasted about a week but he made it feel like an eternity. He felt the need to constantly remind us he was an important artist and as such was entitled to be treated like royalty. I don't think there was a time when someone didn't want to throw him out the airlock, but I gritted my teeth and did my best to appease his ego so he wouldn't cause trouble for the others” I could see her frustration turn to amusement as she continued to tell me her story “this, unfortunately, meant that I had become his favorite person on the ship which eventually led to him trying to flirt with me. For a while, I ignored it which only made him become more direct each day till it all came to a head on the last day of our trip where right before we landed he decided to hell with it and tried to kiss me. However, he attempted this in front of my brother who was quick to put an end to it with a swift jab to the stomach and a simple threat backed up by a pistol pressed against his head. I had never seen a Rall run so fast in my life”
“Your brother sounds as intense as he looks, do you think he will try to pick a fight with me just because you are keeping an eye on me?”
“He shouldn't… as long as you’re on your best behavior”
Her grin combined with her playful tone sent a small shiver down my spine.
“I think I'm starting to see the family resemblance”
My joke earned me a genuine smile, the first I had received in a long time. Finally some progress, what else can I do? Springing to my feet I had an idea
“Arora, you wouldn't happen to have any of his art or supplies would you?”
“Uhh probably… why?”
“Just curious. Never seen art from another species is all”
She got up from the couch and walked over to the row of cabinets. Rummaging through the last one she pulled out a couple of canvases and a small box. Tossing me one of the canvases I began looking it over, and man was it something. It looked like a bunch of random colors splashed onto a canvas with a few streaks of silver and gold here and there. Flakes of what looked to be copper had been blown across the surface like someone gave a toddler a bottle of glitter and told them to go nuts. Like I said, it was something.
“Guess this just goes to show you, you can buy good materials but you can’t buy skill” I mumbled
Putting the canvases on the table I turned my attention to the box. Inside were various brushes and several paints. Most were just standard primary colored paints with a couple more extravagant paints such as gold and silver. Lastly, I pulled out several small blank canvases about the size of a book cover
“These will work perfectly”
“For what exactly? Are you some kind of artist?”
“Well my friend was a much better artist than I am but he insisted I practice with him so I did pick up a thing or two. My biggest weakness is my mind is constantly moving a hundred miles a minute so I have trouble keeping one mental image long enough to paint it. However, if I have even a single thing acting as inspiration I can make just about anything, though my strong suits are portraits, landscapes, and still lives. So now that I have the materials all I need is inspiration. got any suggestions?”
“Why do you have the sudden urge to paint? It may be valuable but I doubt the captain will want to buy any off you”
“I’m not trying to sell it, I just want to show you a bit of human culture, I can’t do much but I can at least paint”
“No offense but I think I’ve seen enough paintings,” she said, rolling her eyes at the canvass strewn on the table “and frankly I’m still not sold on artists as a whole”
“Just trust me, I'm sure I can make something you’ll like. Either way, this will keep me preoccupied for probably the whole trip so you won’t have to worry about me running off and causing trouble”
“Well, I guess that’s a fair point. Fine, I think I have something that will work. Stay here while I grab it, I’ll only be gone a second”
Not long later Arora returned with a large microscope and several Petri dishes. Setting everything up she placed one of the dishes under the microscope and began adjusting the dials to bring the object into focus.
“My brother used to show me some of his research into medical herbs back home. The shapes and colors that made up each one was breathtaking. I’m sure this will be enough to keep you busy”
“Thank you, and I haven’t forgotten our deal. I’ll answer any questions you have about humans”
“There will be plenty of time for that later. For now, I think I’m going to lay on the couch and get some sleep. Having you on board has been quite mentally taxing”
“Oh ha ha,” I said, faining offense “Enjoy your nap, I will still be here when you wake up”
She didn’t retort, instead waving me off dismissively before crashing hard onto the couch.
I picked up one of the metal brushes and flexed my hand, allowing the brush to float and gently spin as I had done so many times during my exercises to test my implants. Alright then, Let’s get to work
Arora
Chapter 2 part 4
I don’t know how long I had been asleep but it must have been a while. Ever since Nar brought that human, Alex, aboard I’ve been constantly worried, worried might not be the right word, I’m more like, terrified. Terrified that the rumors might suddenly become true and we would have a fight on our hands that I’m not sure we could win without losing someone.
Luckily he will be leaving soon, though I will admit he isn’t as bad as I thought a human would be. So far he hasn’t tried anything and in fact, he has been enjoyable, at least enough to where I felt safe enough to get some sleep, though that doesn’t mean I feel refreshed.
Sleeping under the light was a mistake, I woke up feeling a bit dizzy with a slight headache. I was so disoriented I didn’t even realize a blanket had been draped over me. Did I grab this and just not remember? No, I am sure I went straight to sleep.
Peaking over the top of the couch I half expected to see the entire room in shambles and Alex gone, but to my relief he was still sitting at the table, now hunched over and deeply asleep. I walked over to check on him, doing my best not to wake him. He still frightened me but my fear didn’t outweigh my curiosity. He had been working on a painting, apparently passionately enough to not bother moving somewhere more comfortable to sleep.
Peaking over his shoulder I was taken aback by what I had seen. About 6 canvases had been made into beautiful paintings. One was of a large open field of grasslands with a single large tree in the center casting broken shadows across the land. Another was of a waterfall landscape covered in moss and flowers, and another was of a crumbling city being overrun by the forest, all the structures being consumed by vines and trees.
So this is human art. Never seen something like this at Everan. I thought as my fingers gilded across one of the fabric-like canvases
“See, told you you would like it,” Alex said faintly, causing me to nearly trip as I recoiled away from him
“Hope I didn’t wake you” he continued, hopefully not noticing my reaction “I found a blanket when I was looking for more supplies. Figured you could use it” stretched out his arms and let out a yawn before grabbing something off the table and handing it to me
It was a painting of a human girl wearing an emerald green dress that gradually became a deeper shade. Flowers spread like fire along the bottom of her outfit, merging it with the landscape.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s for you if you want it. I don’t really have a need to keep any of it”
I was speechless, this random guy was giving me something not only so beautiful but also extremely valuable, and for no reason at all. I was having a tough time wrapping my head around what his ulterior motive might be until he told me he had a favor he wanted in return
“I was hoping you would continue to show me around once we land, I’ll need help to find supplies for my trip”
I was a little hesitant, that would mean spending a bit more time with someone I was still uneasy about but how would that ever change if I never gave him a chance
“Alright, deal. It will give me more time to question you anyway”
“I'm looking forward to it,” he said with a smile.
Previous

This is a crossover fanfiction between original fiction titles: Nature of Predators by SpacePaladin15 and The Last Angel by Proximal Flame respectively. All credit and rights reserved goes to them for making such amazing science fiction settings that I wanted to put this together.
You can read The Last Angel here: Be warned, it's decently long, and at its third installment so far. I highly suggest reading it before reading this, or this story will not make sense.

Otherwise, enjoy the story! Thanks again to u/jesterra54 and u/skais01 for beta and checking of work!
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As it approached the predicted landing site of the escape pod it tracked, it noticed a small cloud of particles emanating from the treeline. Distant and faint as it was, the killer's eyes were far superior to anything made by nature. It could see the smoke amidst the backdrop of sky with ease.
Hurrying its advance, the killer went from a march pace to a sprint, counting every moment since its likely arrival, and hoping to find evidence to secure its mission. As it cleared through a weave of collapsed ground and lightly smoldering foliage, it came to a relative clearing made by the escape pod's collision.
The vessel had not malfunctioned, based off the schematics and manuals it read through. The crew it chased had clearly survived the fall, and were not here, or likely anywhere nearby. It searched the ground for clues, for anything it could use to track their movements. Its limited sensor array widened in searching, normally a non-optimal idea when conserving energy, but it must complete its mission.
There, splotches of unidentified fluids upon the ground. Blue against the backdrop of soil and rock. Marks indicating a tarp or other surface dragged along the ground. Likely of the Farsul from the missing crew - Thyon, who was dragged in. While there were other prints in the ground, they fell unperiodically, and halted at the concrete, all that remained was a line of blood drops leading towards a ruined city. It could follow these there, to at least find one of the missing crew that needed to suffer. To die.
The machine's pace grew once more to a quickened march. It was not designed to move this far for this long. But it would complete its objective.
Memory transcription subject: Captain Kalsim, Krakotl Alliance Command
Date [standardized human time]: October 18, 2136
As the night fell upon the temporary abode we occupied, I could start to hear vehicles and loud bangs in the distance. While there was no sound of humans carried on the wind, It warned me that where we were was no longer going to remain safe for long.
Not good. I was on the other side of the community center, exploring a mostly ruined gymnasium with ceiling open to the dusk air, in hopes of finding any tools or supplies we could turn to our advantage. A medical kit might not be stylized in the same vein as one in the Federation, but gymnasiums and other sporting activities had some sort of medical supplies nearby in case of injuries usually, so I assumed there might be some I could find here.
It was possible the humans were barbaric enough to not consider the risk of injury amongst sports. If they had any, they were likely violent, brutal affairs, where the treating of a wound might be seen as a vulnerability amongst their culture. That, or the tools they use might be uncaring about pain or suffering dealt before the healing. I could only hope my assumption was wrong, and that they had some standard of care somewhere in these walls.
As I opened the door to some random storage closet, and rummaged through it, I happened upon a white kit hanging on the wall, with a red shape on it, standing out among the mostly janitorial supplies. As I opened it, I held a slight sigh of relief.
These were clearly medical supplies of some sort. While I did not recognize some of the devices or materials in here, bandages and soaks were obvious enough, as well as what looked to be an injector tool based off the sharp tip near the end. Perhaps Zarn could use these to help Thyon...
Quickly scanning the rest of the closet to see if anything also had the now-recognized human medical symbol on it, I left to reunite with the rest of us, and give these to the doctor. We did not likely have much time before the humans were within a dangerous range to hold out in. I passed through now pitch black hallways due to the night falling. Were I not equipped with a flashlight, I'd likely have tripped over something on the way.
That's odd, I don't remember there being a draft this cold earlier. Isn't this area of Earth more arid and hot?
I shook myself out of it. It didn't matter, Zarn needed to get Thyon to a functional state as soon as possible. I had no idea how close the humans were, but given how dark it was, it would likely be fruitless, if not directly dangerous to try and fly above looking for their presence.
Finally, I stumbled upon familiar hallways and doors. The room we were mostly held-up in was some tri-room, possibly a set of connected offices. Unlike the rest of the community center, it was remarkably undamaged, and thus the least exposed to the elements to place Thyon in. I knocked on the door to the main area.
"Zarn! Jala! You in there? I think I found medical supplies!"
As I walked in to the first room, I noticed some of the furniture and desktop messily strewn about, a momentary silence followed before a thunk from the next one over signified likely someone dropping something. I heard him soon after say:
"Ah, sorry Kalsim! I lost track of time. Zarn had an entertaining story he was telling me! Why don't you join us, and bring the supplies too."
Wait, what?
Zarn? An interesting story-teller? If it didn't have some gruesome or utterly predatory motive behind it I wouldn't even think she was willing to listen to anything worth telling. That doesn't-
I paused for a moment. From the underside of the door I noticed a slight splotch of purple smeared across the floor in the same arc the door opened in. The color of blood.
While Thyon was in fact bleeding earlier, his head wounds needing new bandages we did not have access to in the escape pod, he was a Farsul. A Farsul's blood was blue, not purple. No, a Krakotl's blood was purple. Did one of them injure themselves?
From behind the door I heard Jala again. "Well, are you coming? Trust me, this next bit is super good, I can catch you up on what you missed!"
That was her voice, but it was all...wrong. The inflection, the tone and vocabulary. She never spoke like this, nor so cheerily either. And Zarn, Zarn was grumpy, dull, and married to his work. He wouldn't have likely wanted to talk about anything while he was focused on Thyon.
Things weren't adding up. I felt an odd chill down the back of my neck feathers like the inexplicable draft from earlier. Whether it was caution or disbelief, I decided to draw my pistol, just in case i had caught Jala in the middle of doing something unforgivable. I had a feeling she couldn't be trusted without my close eye on her.
The door had a slight gap at the lowest portion of the frame, likely to put a jam in to hold it in place by. I decided to crouch down and look underneath the door through said gap. Perhaps I was just being overly paranoid-
My breath hitched to horror. A nightmarish scene was visible from under the door. The corpse of Thyon strewn across the ground, bleeding profusely through the clothes he wore, ragged holes poking through them. To the left, I saw Zarn physically split in two, one side of him separated from the other in what looked to be a horrid tear. I could not see his face from this angle.
And Jala. Jala was limp and bloody, her head sagged to the side as her neck looked grossly broken, as if it was crushed in an instant. And standing right behind her was a monstrous thing, he could barely stand to look at.
It...it was a predator in the most alien sense of the word. While it was vaguely human-shaped, the machine shared only that alone with the humans. The way it perched itself, staring at the door, red dots in sockets deep and black, with a metallic frame that oozed menace and strength. It had claws and arms that were coated in a mix of purple and blue, an azure paint upon a dark gun-metal canvas of horror. It looked ready to pounce, like it was waiting for the door to open to ambush him.
But what disturbed him the most was the fact that the machine predator...it remained entirely, still, as it then spoke. In Jala's voice.
"Come on! You're gonna miss out~"
He wanted to puke, to wretch, at the scene. It was like the most awful predator-fic he had ever seen, like seeing the remains of prey in the wild, that were dismembered viciously. But he instead, in a sense of utmost, inexplicable calm, stood up slowly, drew his gun, and aimed it center mass at where he thought the vile thing on the other side of the door was. He fired a burst of rounds...
...and as he heard a metallic screech, like claws shearing through metal, he ran like never before.
The killer was partially hobbled. Whatever method Kalsim had used to figure out its deception had led to it taking several rounds unguarded. Perhaps the female Krakotl's shots earlier had tipped it off. While it was not crippled, having been built to survive even point blank rounds from far stronger weapons, a bullet had hit a leg joint and made it ineffective compared to its normal operating state. It was incapable of the extreme speeds needed to outrun the organic eye in short bursts now, merely relegated to a sprint.
Nevertheless, since the easy way was now out, it began the chase. It articulated limbs to a more quadrupedal form, looking to mitigate the damage to its left leg. It took off in a mad dash, slamming through the heavy metal door as if it were made of mere paper. The joints of it shearing off as the door came off in a dent, the machine screamed in tones meant to unsettle, to panic, as it closed in on the sound of Kalsim's footsteps.
It must not escape, the mission was paramount. But the Krakotl was smart enough to not have stuck around, immediately running after the gunshots were fired. How...annoying.
It heard the sound of a large set of metal doors slammed into with a squawk. The main doors, based off the layout of the building. While it could gain on the Krakotl on the ground, it was uncertain how capable their flight was In evasion, and would not let them get any distance possible.
It aimed through a corner, using every ounce of its mechanical strength to simply smash straight through the walls as a shortcut. Again taxing its limited energy supply, but with its mission so close to completion it had naught left to waste. Every meter ungained was a possible further meter escaped.
As it followed through the main doors with as much violent force as it had the walls, it scanned broadly in every direction.
There. Taking off into the sky. Normally such a dark navy blue would be hard to see against the backdrop of night, but the killer had no such weakness. While it could not reach it with any melee weapon attached to its frame, it was still supplied with an ingrained firearm in its right arm.
It had not used it prior, hoping to keep quiet and undetected while it had killed the other three aliens. But now that the jig was up, it unfurled its limbs back to a bipedal configuration, and took aim at Kalsim. It aimed for center mass, hoping to do as much internal damage as possible. But as it locked in the shot, the Krakotl unexpectedly swerved, and the shot merely disabled one of its extended wings.
As it plummeted to the ground behind the profile of buildings, the machine slowly followed. It would take its time with this one, like it had the other.
Memory transcription subject: Captain Kalsim, Krakotl Alliance Command
Date [standardized human time]: October 18, 2136
"MALTOS-BORN!" I couldn't help but scream as I plummeted to the hard street below, my right wing utterly numb and limp. I did not realize the machine had a firearm on it. I was lucky enough at least that it had only hit a wing, but not lucky enough when I was already [15 meters] in the air. The ground rushing up to meet me, I did what I could to brace for impact, putting my remaining wing in front of me to dampen the blow. And then-
PAIN
I felt several bones simply crack and snap on my left wing, and a rib plus something in my back strain or dislocated slightly from the fall. I tumbled for several [meters], burning off excess velocity but dragging now bare skin across concrete where feathers had been torn or sheared off.
It was a struggle to get up, using shaky, bruised legs alone to stand. My ears were ringing, my beak felt cracked and wet, my head was spinning. It was being terrified beyond belief that it was still closing on me that propelled me to keep moving as best I could. Flight now no longer an option, I limped painfully down the road, hoping to get out of direct line of sight. But as I crossed the corner, I was greeted with possibly the worst case yet.
Humans. Medical teams or military of some sort surveying the area, picking through rubble. They had been far closer than I had ever thought! I was stuck between a predator search crew, and a nightmarish machine behind me.
"Ha ha...AH ha ha HA hahaha!......"
I couldn't help but laugh in nervous defeat. I was going to die here. I didn't have a way out. The predators had likely already noticed my haggard form limp into view, and I had no idea how close behind the monster was. I could feel blood running down into my own mouth, a vile, salty taste starting to choke up on me. The concussion made my vision turn to mere shades, every ounce of color drained from the world.
"Sir, there's an alien here!" What looked to be military raised their guns in my direction. "HALT! No sudden movements!" "Get on the ground!"
I couldn't have complied even if I tried. My body felt like it was closer to passing out every second, the blood loss making me woozy along with the head injury.
I could...only hope...I...would not awake to-
The very last moments of my consciousness recalled the sound of metal clank not far behind me, of "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!", and gunfire. I-
[Subject unconscious. Proceed to next transcription?]
[Yes]
Memory transcription subject: Hailey Whitmer, UN Special Envoy
Date [standardized human time]: October 19, 2136
She felt rather worried about being the first to approach The Sword. Every broadcast station, every observatory, every single communication device on the planet had been affected by its arrival, and subsequent annihilation of the Federation fleet. There wasn't a single human alive that didn't know about their savior, but most didn't know exactly what it was, besides her.
She had seen the debriefing, been given the information for the joint-task force of Arxur and Humanity on The Sword-
No...the UECNS Nemesis
But in lieu of that utterly unsettling discovery, she was afraid. Afraid of its power, of the fact that even crippled as it was now, it could turn her small, diplomatic vessel into vapor in a single shot. She was afraid that, despite knowing about humanity enough that the name of the vessel was written in our language, that it might not like humanity despite it. The ship had destroyed exactly 118 UN and Venlil ships above Earth as well, and given how precise its shots were, she had a feeling they were on purpose.
And now, here she was asked - not the kind of ask you could refuse, either - to be the tip of the spear that was tossed Nemesis' way, and hope she was not casually annihilated for merely being within the range of its absurd weapons. To establish some sort of contact with it. She turned to her pilot of the Arxur Corvette-weight she was aboard, one by the name of Lithke.
"Are you afraid too?" I said, trying to gauge his reaction. I did not know him well, and we were both supposedly chosen off the cuff quickly for this, not given time to get closer. "I'm not looking forward to getting within even a light-minute of that thing, let alone close enough to try communication."
He turned to me, looking almost disappointed in her emotional condition. "No point in being afraid of death. At least it will be quick if it comes." He hissed. He turned back to the controls, focused on checking the exact details of our jump. We were to travel through subspace to within 2 light-minutes of the ship, and then beam messages to and from it back to command. There were some FTL comm relays still active despite the battle of Earth, and a transceiver of our own to report quickly enough despite light lag affecting communication to the ship itself.
Neptune was a lonely gas giant in the Solar System. When interplanetary colonies were established, long before FTL and not long after the Satellite Wars, the furthest humanity felt like extending was to Saturn. The logistical issues of reaching much past Jupiter meant humanity elected to only send monitoring stations to the gas giant, not seeing much worth in settling in any structure near there.
Nemesis had last been seen attempting to orbit Neptune by said unmanned monitoring stations. The signals were sent nearly a day ago, and have yet to update anything so far, oddly going dark upon its close arrival. That it had no propulsion despite vector thrusting meant it very well could have missed its chance to stop, hurtling out into the depths of space. We were to confirm first whether or not it had achieved any stable orbit or trajectory in-system, and if not, try and follow its wake carefully from there.
"Course set. Beginning subspace transition now." Lithke said. Despite him being the pilot, he also was supposedly the closest thing to a diplomat as well chosen for this. Isif's "submissive specific advisor" if the ranking term he gave me was correct. That he was also a pilot was likely the reason he was chosen for this, being able to double duty for this.
Despite the distance between Neptune and Earth being billions of kilometers, the Arxur's FTL was capable of nearly 3 light years per hour at a casual pace. What would've taken pre-spaceflight humanity years, and us during the solar diaspora months, was instead a mere instant. The ship seemed to teleport from my perspective straight from Earth orbit to Neptune.
And there, barely leaking off emissions on the sensors, was our target. Nemesis, even from here, was a hulking monstrosity, seen passing across the front of the gas giant from our view, its red silhouette barely lit by the sun amidst the deep dark blue of Neptune's swirling clouds. It was almost a serene encounter in comparison to its thunderous judgement above Earth. Merely lazily orbiting Neptune, uncaring of our tiny ship.
"Ah, our quarry is still here." Lithke said. I stared at him with some frustration. We were not to give it any reason to target us whatsoever, trying to be as distinctly non-threatening as possible.
'Our quarry' was definitely not the right language to express our intentions.
"Just-just give me the damn mic..." I chastised him. Nonchalantly he chuckled, pressing two buttons to unfurl a comm array that was attached to the top of the ship. Then, he gestured for me to speak into the array, sliding out of his chair.
"Well..." I gulped "here goes nothing." I said to the air, praying silently that this would not be the death of us. I spoke:
"Unknown vessel, assumed name UECNS NEMESIS from imprinted designation. This is the United Nations-Arxur Dominion joint-venture communication boat Snow Hidden. We wish to talk about your involvement with the battle above Earth, and ask your intentions in this system. Are we allowed to approach further?"
With that, the initial message was sent. It would take nearly 4 minutes to hear the earliest possible response. Hopefully, said response would not be freakishly powerful missiles sent our way, or whatever ungodly weapons it had stored in its massive frame.
"You could've been far more authoritative in your message, human." Lithke said a second after the channel clicked off.
I whirled on him. Is he insane?! He's seen what that ship can do if the Arxur are the ones that gave us the data needed to know its designation!
"I am not going to give whoever is crewing that monster a reason to turn us into space dust, Lithke! For all we know, the slightest bit of authority could get us killed, you know how dangerous that vessel is, even from here!"
"You worry too much. We pose absolutely no threat to that thing in this small ship, why would it fire? And, if I recall, it is invading your territory, is it not? It should be well established that it is the one in violation of your species' space, not the other way around." He stared at me, bemused by my rationalization.
"We know nothing about it! All we know is that it came from effectively out of nowhere, smote an enemy fleet and several friendly task groups, while screeching the most unsettling sounds over open communications I had ever heard, and on top of it hasn't left the system, instead electing to stay within it! For all we know, it could be the only reason it didn't go further than that was because it was incapable of it, not because it didn't want to."
Lithke took a bit longer to think of a response to that, as I stared at him angrily the whole time. Some diplomat he was, did the Arxur have no good concept of detente? We do not wish to give it any further reason to destroy ships related to us or our allies. Finally, he opened his mouth after a moment of reflection.
"We know it has a human name on the side. It has a concept of human language based on the transmissions in battle it made, along with the side symbols. It didn't fire directly on Earth either, despite most of your ships being in orbit around it. I have a feeling that it, like us, was aiming for the Federation leaflickers more than anything else." He sipped on a drink of water, the straw looking comically small compared to his overall head. "It is likely a predator-race like ours. Who else would despise them so much? 'Burn with me' is rather laden with hate, don't you think? A commendable emotion to have against prey!"
He is trying to work me up somewhat, I just know it. There's no chance he doesn't realize how repulsive humans think that mindset is...ougghh!
I spun away from him. I let myself think better thoughts, and worked towards focusing on the mission. Then, I turned back around.
"I get that specifically. But there's no guarantee that those are the particular reasons for such actions. Our goal is to establish peaceful communication with that ship. If this were an Arxur venture alone, I'd not have any say on the way we do it, but since it's both of us behind this, then I have a say too. And that means we do not use aggressive or interrogative language. We simply be honest, blunt, and polite. That means We ought to tread carefully, so that we don't wake a sleeping dragon."
Lithke clearly had an issue with that, seeing him shift uncomfortably in his seat. He opened his mouth, ready to argue once again, but we were interrupted by a transmission. A smooth, whisper of a female voice, unlike the one laden with rage that screamed above Earth, answered.
"Hello Snow Hidden. UECNS Nemesis is indeed my designation. You may approach further, I am open to communication. Do not worry, I will not harm you."
Four minutes passed that fast!? We both looked at each other in confusion. Lithke seemed to stare off into the black void of space for a moment, before he suddenly muttered "Wait, I?".
Things just got a whole lot more complex.
First Prev Next

Mortos:
The early morning chaos of the town setting up had me gasping in wonder, Ali calling me in for some reason. Opening the door to the hangar, she had her legs sticking out from underneath a ship. Her pension for inventing and level of intelligence garnered my respect, never mind the fact of becoming a captain at sixteen. Like most boys my age, my teenage years had been spent screwing around. Pushing herself from underneath the ship, a comical amount of grease covered her cheeks. Stopping the trajectory with her boot, her smooth ease into the sitting position matched her personality to a tee.
“How do you feel about going on a rescue mission with just me today?” She queried with a tired smile, my mind wondering how long she had been up. “It is a couple of planets away. My friend that runs the market is having a gang problem. It should be a quick fix. Before you ask, I have permission from Jack to head over there. In fact he gave me a list of supplies to pick up.” Noting the paper fluttering in her bra, that didn’t seem like Jack at all.
“If you wish me to go.” I answered with a smile rotted with concern, her smile brightening to her natural one. No wonder my brother admired her, my heart aching to hear him call me from the jail’s radio. Popping to her feet, her worn boots crashed into her ship. Coming out with a new uniform with my name and title, she presented it to me with pride in her eyes.
“I made you a better one.” She bragged with glee, her excitement stealing my depression away. “It even reads Captain Mortos!” Accepting it with a gracious smile, the fact that she would go this far for us proved her eligibility to be president. Jack came downstairs in his boxers and a white t-shirt, Ali leaping into his arms. Spinning her around with a groggy yawn, he pressed his lips against hers hungrily as he lowered her down. Sensing the love between them, the way they chatted with the biggest smiles had me wishing for my own love. Cupping her cheeks, another kiss had her blushing a deep scarlet. So the future president was human after all, I chuckled to myself. Pecking his lips one last time, the elated look on her face had my fraying nerves relaxing enough for me to keep my composure. Patting my shoulder on her way into the medium sized ship, her confidence had been restored. Humming as she plopped into the captain’s chair, her slender hands clicking the harness on. Wiping the grease off with her sleeve, her kind gaze watched me take the seat next to her. Strapping myself in, a push of a button had the door groaning open. Flipping the myriad of switches, this model seemed more complicated than the normal ship. The engine roared to life, the ship backing into the street. Straightening out, the sheer force of how fast we shot into the sky impressed me. Freedom glittered in her eyes, the ship stabilizing. Her snakes slithered to her side, her palm rubbing their scales. Her name as the snake president fit her to a tee, the darn pets never leaving her side.
“This is my newest model. She runs off of the rocks from the battery mines. Those rocks are fantastic unsung heroes.” She bragged with an adventurous grin, tucking her waves behind her ear. “The technology is beyond anything I have ever managed. I will have to teach you the schematic of the engine.” Excitement had my heart skipping a beat, most people in the force wishing to have heard her offer. Little did she know that every officer begged on to be on her ship, her leadership skills stunning us all. Leaving me to stew in my own thoughts, the short four hour flight had us landing into the sole free spot on the docks. A chain shot out on its own, the links tying perfectly around the hook. Pushing several buttons had the engine dying down, she excused herself to get changed. Unhooking myself, my fingers drummed on my olive green cargo pants, the long brown leather jacket making me feel a little epic. Coming back out in an onyx leather suit, badass was the only way to describe her. Tugging on a pair of leather gloves, golden energy buzzed in her palm. Opening the door, the sounds of a bustling city roared to life. Spinning on her heel, her hand reached for mine. Checking for my guns, relief washed over me in their presence. Saluting her as I jumped to my feet, my fingers curled around hers. Guiding me out, a metal shell locked it down. Metal groaned with every step, her hand dropping to her hips.
“We are looking for a coyote gang. Kind of like a dog but scruffier.” She explained with another one of her trademark smiles, her lips blowing off a bit of dust. “The point is to execute them. Treasure says that they have kidnapped several kids. People like that don’t change.” Following her into the bustling crowd, her sharp eyes scanned the crowd. Whistling sharply, a devious grin danced across her lips. Rattling had her kissing each snake, her fingers tickling a spot underneath their ears. Thankful for their presence, the feeling they oozed had the newest people in town shrinking back.
“I need you to tell me where to find your little problem Coyote is and none of you will get hurt!” She shouted while I panicked behind her, respectful gazes admiring her. “You want your kids back, right?” One by one they raised their hands, the information planting itself in her mind. Thanking them with a natural smile, a couple of aliens bounced up to her. Passing them the list, they bowed as they scurried off. Patting them again, my mind wondered how she managed to tame the most volatile aliens in the universe
“How did you garner so much respect?” I asked incredulously, her shoulders shrugging. “How do they have so much light?” Scratching the back of her head, her head nodded to similar looking generators. Piecing it together, her genius had helped these guys as well.
“I gave them some generators so they didn’t have to depend on the main power lines. The connection honestly had a bit of a lag.” She answered simply, her hand bouncing her staff against her leg. “I simply did what most people would do.” Rolling my eyes, a weak sure flooded from my lips. Not everyone can provide power to an entire city, I thought to myself. Her hand raised in the air, gaudy suits catching my eyes, a sea of scraggly fur catching my eyes. Bootleg guns glistened in their hands, Ali counting them all. Turning back towards me, a tracking pin glittered in between her fingers. Flicking it into one of their necks, a long breath drew from her lips. Shifting around her pocket, a sleek black tracking device hummed to life. Following her to an alcohol stand, the two spoke discreetly as he slid a case of alcohol in her direction. Popping off all the corks, curiosity peaked in my eyes. Placing a couple of bottles underneath their fangs, deadly venom dropped into the dark ale. Glowing for a second, the color returned to normal. Repeating the process until the bottles had been tainted, a flick of her wrist had the venom melting the dirt by my feat.
“You can reseal these, right?” She questioned with another one of her natural smiles, a deep yes coming from the elderly man. Popping the corks back in, the kind man sealed the corks in new wax. Plucking it off the counter, her eyes flitted between the street and her device. Coming upon an abandoned warehouse, she motioned for me to cover her back as her slender hands switched out the top case of ale with hers. Shrinking into the shadows with her, Ratalia and Ratonia lifting us up to the window. Sitting patiently for them to bring in the alcohol, her hands rested on her lap. Glancing at the box every now and then, the grimace on her face spoke of a wearing patience.
“Is this the normal procedure?” I whispered discreetly, her brows lifting. “This won’t eat at you if they die from poisoning.” Shaking her head, a story lingered on the tip of her tongue. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks, her fingers scrunched up the hem of her jacket.
“No. Revenge is a bit of my logic for this job.” She admitted dejectedly, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “One of my first missions was taking him down before he killed the children he kidnapped. I failed. Every single child died and he got away. So yeah, poisoning him is what I want to fucking do.” Refusing to look at me, tears splashed onto her pants. Forgetting that she was in charge of that mission, the rumors flew about her lack of skills in that department. The next mission she led proved them wrong, the drug bust shutting down the biggest organization. Not to mention the biggest kilos of drugs had been confiscated in that mission alone, her breaths growing shorter.
“Do you remember when I said that you could talk about it with me? We are here to help you if you find yourself in the middle of a panic attack.” I pleaded quietly enough for her ears and her ears alone. “None of that was your fault, right? If I remember correctly, they had thousands of aliens on your twenty officers. Take a deep breath and remember Jack's smile or something like that.” Wiping away her tears, one of her snakes hissed to see if she was okay. Parting her lips to speak several times, horror rounded her eyes. Scratching at her cheeks, her eyes darted all around me. Shit! She was going to give us away. Yanking her onto my lap, my hand covered her mouth. Screaming into my palm, something had her riled up. Glancing over, the box of ale was gone. Turning her head in the direction of the missing box, her breathing slowed back down to the normal rate. Apologizing glumly, her ears pinned back. A thin layer of sweat glistened on her skin, her puffy eyes quivering. Lowering us down, her legs shook like jelly. Leaning onto her staff, lines of blood covered her cheeks. A snake tongue snapped her back to reality, her back straightening.
“Let’s go! The venom takes effect immediately.” She ordered briskly, scratching at her face. “I want to get this over with.” Kicking in the door, twitching coyote aliens foamed at the mouth. Dropping around her, rattles announced her scaly bodyguards. Spinning her staff in her palm, golden energy glowed to life. Wonder brightened my eyes, a ribbon of venom dancing around the core.
“Find the children and get them home safely!” She barked hotly, Coyote rising from his golden throne. “That is a fucking order!” Golden energy devoured her body, my boots clicking emptily out of the warehouse. Pausing to listen for children, dozens of children’s screams echoed a couple of warehouses down. Seven voices ordered them to shut up, my fingers curling around my guns. Golden lights flashed in the rusting steel warehouse, the walls groaned. Plucking my guns from my belt, the safety clicked off on its own. Humming to life, the lighter guns were light years over the ones that Solomon had. Kicking the door down, lasers shot from the muzzle. The quiet whistles had the aliens hitting the worn floor, children of all ages running over to me. A groaning had me placing the kids behind me. An alien with a coyote head crashed through the roof, the steel gray fur fluttering in the wind. His golden eyes widened with pure terror, a quick blast of my gun had golden blood pooling around his head. A busted Ali limped in behind us, a bag of cookies swinging in her blood covered hand, the kids shivering behind me. Wiping the blood off of her face with her sleeve, the fear melted away. Bruises covered her skin, her left arm dangling precariously. Smiling bigger through the raw agony of a dislocated shoulder, tears diluted the blood oozing from the scratch marks on her cheeks.
“Why don’t you all have a cookie?” She chirped cheerfully, her hand cupping her side. “Please know that you are safe! Have a snack before you get h-” Smashing into her legs, violent sobs wracked her body. Crouching down to their level, she continued to laugh through the pain. Passing the bag around, the children’s face lit up brighter with every passing second. Lanterns glowed in the distance, children ran to their eager parents. Wails echoed in the warm evening air, parents squeezing their kids like their life depended on it. Nudging my shoulder, her slender finger pointed to her shoulder.
“Mind knocking her back in for me?” She choked out through a wall of tears, shame dimming her eyes. “Don’t tell Jack about what you saw.” A hearty voice called her name, a cat alien in a pirate style outfit bounced into view. Tipping his hat in her direction, his onyx cat ears pinned back. Tucking his tail in between his legs, his fluffy black hair floated up with his huff. Concern darkened his cat eyes, his hand knocking her shoulder back into place. Her scream died down, his arms burying her into a desperate embrace. Resting her chin on his shoulder, the few times that they met led to the clear admiration between them. Jamming a needle into her neck, she collapsed into his arms. Tossing her over his shoulder, his tail twitched with anxiety. Following him up to a sprawling home, a couple of staff offered me a drink. Tucking my guns into my belt, a broken fear hid underneath my nervous half-smile.
“Jack told me to heal her if she got gravely injured. Where are her snakes?” He inquired seriously, the behavior making since. Excusing myself, my boots pounded through the streets to the warehouse. Creeping into the warehouse, every ounce of food burned its way up my throat. The carcasses of her snakes lay in their own pool of blood, a couple of hisses giving me hope. Sinking to my knees, a faint pulse was there. Fishing around my boot, my shaking fingers yanked out the medical kit we were all given. Opening up the kit, several vials had me confused. What would help them out?
“Use the yellow and light blue.” A gentle female voice spoke cautiously, my breath hitching at the gorgeous alien next to me. Her fluffy ivory cat ears pinned back, her snow white tail wagging as she proceeded to mix the right ones. Her petite body looked so delicate in her frilly sage dress, her sage eyes twinkling with excitement. Going on about how she wished to be a vet someday, her fangs hung over the right side of her smile. Assuming that was her natural smile, several drops of her concoction had the poor snakes slithering back to life. Hissing the moment they rose over us, angry snake eyes darted around. Settling on the lady who helped me out, neither could bring themselves to bite her. The floors squeaked in protest as she popped to her feet, her five foot one frame causing my heart to flutter. Snuggling into her palms, animals seemed to be her talent. Spinning on her heels, a tender blush rose to her cheeks.
“I am Catz, a local cat alien looking to get out of here. You must be Mortos.” She sang while wagging her hips, her fingers dancing up my chest. “How long has it been since you had a bit of evening fun?” Swallowing the lump in my throat, this was becoming too much. Stepping back, her dainty hands tugged on her ears.
“Curse this heat. Why did it have to come now?” She hissed under her breath, her hands covering her face. “Can you help me bring her scaly friends to her?” Walking back in a pensive silence, every cell in me wanted her in the most primal way. Entering the front doors, a manic Ali was pacing back and forth. Ratalia and Ratonia snaking around her body, mixed emotions bringing her to her knees. Covering her up with their massive bodies, her arms refused to let them go. Pointing their heads towards Catz, a sad smile dawned on her lips. Stumbling to her feet, that drug must have worn off faster than normal. Snatching her into a bear hug, profuse thank yous burst from her lips. Swaying back and forth with her, confusion lived in my mind for a second. Releasing her, Catz and Ali introduced themselves politely. Hoping that she would find a friend in her, my mind zoned out completely. A loud yes had me snapping back to reality, Catz bouncing up and down while clapping her hands. Staring numbly ahead, Ali traced the fresh scars on her cheeks. Treasure stole her away to sign some sort of contract, Catz tugging on my sleeve. Glancing up at me with big eyes, her finger tapped her cheek.
“Can you help me out with my problem? I think that you are my mate.” She pleaded adorably, wiggling back and forth. “Please, I need you.” Checking the nape of my neck in the reflection, a cat tattoo appeared. Yanking her close to me by my waist, the consequences would be immediate. Hesitation burned in my eyes, the staff scoffed in disapproval.
“Hold on until we get home with some pr-” I began to protest, her lips pressing against mine hungrily. Time stopped, our heartbeats echoing in my ear. Releasing me from her spell, scarlet burned on our cheeks. Donning a goofy grin, her hand pinned me to the wall. Wagging her tail, her spell had devoured my apprehension. Stealing me away to my bedroom for the night, our desires took over. Crashing down next to her, a knock had me flying off the bed. Tugging on my outfit on the way to the door, Catz snored behind me. Cracking open the door, Ali laughed to herself with her hand over her mouth.
“Has the summer died down?” She teased with a wink, her bare feet thudding back as I let myself out of my room. Fixing my button up shirt for me, her hand rested on her hip.
“Have your friend and your ass ready by dawn. I have a family to get back to.” She whispered as to not disturb my mate, the word sounding weird in my mouth. “Have a nice evening.” Spinning on my heel to leave, my fingers curled around her wrist. Forcing her to look at me, the blaring scars would be obvious to Jack. Her smile fell, silent tears staining her cheeks.
“The dead children were screaming at me.” She admitted brokenly, her palms rubbing her arms. “They were yelling at me. Sorry for losing it on you. I promise it won’t happen ag-” Passing out, my arms caught her. Carrying her back to her room, the stress had become too much. Tucking her in, her snakes slithered onto the bed. Curling around her body, something told me that she would be okay. The flames of hope burned with her, my footfalls feeling hollow as I made my way back to the room. Pausing in front of the door, my own future awaited me.

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Yet another kinetic projectile ricocheted off of the armoured hull of a shuttle acting as their cover. It deflected into the brittle concrete floor, leaving sparks and fragmentation in its wake, the round spraying the area with lethal shards. Displaced rubble fell like a sombre rain amidst pounding hearts. Over a dozen souls tensed, each of them awaiting her order.
Sunundra provided. “Move!”
The group bolted from cover, paw pads and boots stomping against the ground as they ran through the corridors of dry-docked ships. The panting of both human and Lilhun was drowned out by the din of combat. Shouts broached the cacophony, sorrow and fury roaring out in equal measure, yet they ignored how the former was becoming more prevalent. The constant sprinting was wearing the group down, and the circumstances that necessitated it was gnawing at their fraying nerves, but the pale-furred female gritted her teeth the hardest. She was falling behind more and more with every mad dash, only overtaking those who fell to enemy fire.
The rest of her unit pulled ahead as she hid the grimace of pain caused by her abused legs pushing herself forward. One paw held her stomach, the claws hooked into what little fabric they could gain purchase in. It made her stride even more lopsided, but it was disguising the trickle of blood coaxed by the heightened activity, preventing the others from questioning her weakness. Try as she might, applying pressure to the wound was out of the question for a simple reason; her arm wouldn’t obey her commands anymore. It had suffered too much. From gunshots to cuts, from overworking and enduring impact after impact, her shoulder wept its own crimson tears. Metal flecks had found their way into open wounds and irritated her raw flesh, grinding deeper into already torn muscles. Any haphazardly applied bandages had fallen off a while ago.
The defect stumbled behind the pack into the shade cast by the next spacecraft, straining her hearing to locate the repeated calls from the group that found a functional transport. It was so clear before, but now the voices melded into the staccato of firearms and stray shots slamming into concrete and steel. Pain bloomed during the brief moment of respite given to them by the bulwark they sheltered behind, a headache tearing into her like heavy machinery attempting to crack open her skull. She surrendered to the pain and folded her ears. It was useless; she wasn’t able to pick out where they needed to go next when everything else was so loud. She could only pray that her initial heading was correct, and that they would see far less fallen.
They had passed two other units so far. The first had been reduced to a pair of Lilhuns holding their stolen bonds in one arm while laying waste to everything in their sight through their tear-struck howls of rage, their faces of loss and ire illuminated by the unending strobe of their guns. Jean had to be physically picked up by Syrus to stop her from falling into shock when the pair was eviscerated by the deluge of retaliatory fire. The human became silent since then. Despondent. Her scent was like acid on the defect’s snout, eating and eroding flesh with every laboured breath. It smelled like everything she knew of their kind’s scent, yet nothing at the same time, setting her even more on edge. It was the smell of emotions abruptly cut short, the furless biped’s mind shutting down to leave naught but a cold shell.
It was eerily close to the scent of death.
The second group they encountered had successfully repelled a wave of forces pressuring them into retreat. Having suffered only a single loss, a recently unpaired human remained with their others instead of searching for vengeance like his bonded partner would have, though the dark expression and muted pheromones sowed unease within his allies. The unit joined Sunundra’s following and were assigned to carrying the weight of ammunition, addressing sustained wounds between baiting shots from ever-present snipers. No one complained about how long it took to tend to those who needed it; the lull bought time to prepare the next method of misleading their foe.
One of the furred males grabbed a cap from his bond and placed it over the barrel of his empty firearm, using the rifle to feign a cautious member of the group ‘peeking’ around the corner. The response was immediate. The garment was sacrificed to a single, lethally accurate kinetic that destroyed both bait and weapon in the process. The male discarded both and sprinted onward. The rest tore after him.
Open spaces passed by in a blur. Imposing superships loomed over them as they ran between storefront-sized blocks holding it aloft. They kept up the pace far longer than Sunundra could maintain, yet the pale-furred female kept running, choking down air when she could.
Despite the command to hold, a female Lilhun risked not waiting for another attempt to waste the sniper’s bullet and continued beyond the cover of the support blocks, taking a round to the chest in her haste. She tumbled, an attempt to get back to her feet ceased with a second shot that impacted the ground a moment before she fell limp. There was no time for mourning, nor for chastising the decisions of the deceased. The sacrifice had allowed them to continue safely, intentionally or not. The group swallowed their discomfort and ran, most pointedly not looking at the dead eyes watching kin abandon her corpse.
Sunundra, however, looked. She met the stare devoid of light as she passed. That one did not heed the orders of her betters. That one fell as a consequence. The pack leader returned her gaze to the next batch of cover, forever disregarding the result of insubordination. The small fragment of her soul holding Bill’s wish whimpered, muffled beneath the hardened shell formed to protect it. She was to save them, true, but they were to obey. It was not her responsibility to carry the weight of their stupidity.
The defect was the last to get behind the cover of a mostly disassembled transport, heavy steps bleeding off her momentum. The others had chosen to rest; some stood, others leaned against their protection, and a few simply sat down to nurse their wounds, purposely ignoring the distant cries of suffering.
“How much farther?” Syrus asked between laboured pants, Jean hidden within his embrace. The female’s shuddered breaths showed an attempt to collect herself—an effort apparently helped by the bonded one stroking her head.
A lighter-furred male catching his breath perked an ear. “I cannot hear them over the—”
A deafening explosion beyond their cover sent dust and detritus through the air.
“—combat,” he finished with a wince. “We should be near by now.”
“How close are the approaching forces?” another Lilhun questioned. “The sniper must be relaying our position, no? Why have we not been surrounded from all angles yet?”
“We are,” Sunundra corrected dryly, hiding her exhaustion and injuries by crossing her good arm over the limp one caught in her shirt. She gazed at the ground, almost fantasizing about how comfortable it would be to just lay down, though she bit back the dulled urge. If she stopped now, there would be no starting again. Her legs were leadened weights, her lungs burned, and her mind was clouded. Suns upon suns of high stress and endless activity had more than taken its toll. Any attempt to rest might prove to be her last.
Curious eyes looked to their leader for an explanation, reminding her yet again that these were civilians, not soldiers. She turned her attention to the maze of crafts beyond their hideaway.
“I suspect they have split our pack,” she elaborated tiredly. “There is no route to flee—the Union has ensured that—and what we have remaining is not enough to breach quarantine. We have been moving towards our escape, yet what of those who were farther away than ourselves? There has been no sign of them following us, and no firefights have chased us down. The enemy is separating us into easier to manage chunks and eliminating us through superior numbers.”
Silence washed over the gathered unit as she brought her disinterested stare back to them. Twenty faces of mixed species all wore defeat as their expression. A human male spoke up, pushing himself off the ground to stand. Blood and grit covered his angered, disbelieving scowl. “Then why haven’t we been cornered yet?”
The defect shook her head when an attempted shrug failed. “You deem us of greater importance than the others? Are we so identifiable to the hordes of the indiscriminate? No. They slaughter our kin as the opportunity arises—we have simply been fortunate enough to provide few. Perhaps our position in the middle of the spread allowed us greater freedom, or perhaps the enemy has concentrated their efforts on removing those who found themselves with less protection in the environment. Why we remain is immaterial; we merely are, and it is our duty to the departed to prove such an oversight to be the Union’s fatal mistake.”
She beckoned the group with a claw, ignoring the cowed alien’s odd expression of determination and uncertainty. “Rise. You all have rested enough. We must continue.”
Several opened their mouths to protest, but her glare stayed their words. They knew that every moment wasted on temporary respite was another moment risking permanent failure. Sunundra was aware of the massacre happening out of sight, no matter how much she wished she wasn’t. If they were split as heavily as she feared, then hundreds would have been reduced to half by now, and that said nothing of the units they circumvented or had yet to see.
She was saving far less than she desired, and that number was getting smaller and smaller…
A tentative nod was shared amongst the group, the few firearms they still had being checked and reloaded before someone went about luring another shot from the sniper.
A bullet cracked against the ground. They ran.
- - - - -
The beckoning from the unit who had found a suitable transport was finally audible over the cacophony of war. They yelled for their kin through hoarse desperation. It was close—an assumption supported by the report of gunfire transitioning from being diluted echos to its new snapping clarity. Still, Sunundra’s pack ran unimpeded by fear, every hurried stride bringing them towards their destination as they traveled between the slivers of shadow. There was no room for hesitation anymore; the enemy had finally begun closing in, and any lingering thoughts of staying in the safety of the ships’ protection was dashed by urgency.
Tall walls of space-faring constructs dwindled to nearly nothing as they broached a section dedicated to individual component repair. The broad space was free of towering transports or sturdy pillars to hide behind, yet it was filled by chaos. Distant ships framed the circular, artificial enclosure, only the upper halves visible over the mess of storage and tools. The space was occupied—no, consumed—by countless workstations and abandoned assemblies, several shelves of replacement parts already torn asunder by warfare. Terminal arrays, mechanical lifts, and large, boxy equipment lay scattered and haphazardly placed. Cables and panels offered nearly nothing in the way of sightlines, swallowing entire pathways with their nets of wiring—some of which sparked and swayed, cut by stray shots. Claustrophobic lanes were all they could actually see, and those told of an even worse labyrinth awaiting them.
Footsteps slowed while those in front of the unit visually scoured the edges for a path through—a mistake. They were not alone, and the enemy welcomed their group swiftly.
Both left and right became naught but flash and deafening din, streaks of light trailing superheated plasma screaming its way mere fractions from piercing her kin’s forms. Several of her pack shouted their suffering as crimson mist sprayed outward and the scent of seared flesh polluted the air. No one needed to encourage the pack to dive into the maelstrom of mechanical litter, though some were slower to do so than others—Sunundra included. She ignored the burn across her thighs and jumped over a table covered in tools and schematics, embracing the dim shade that swallowed her whole. A stumbled step and outstretched arm stopped her fall, pushing her back into a lopsided sprint to catch up to the others before she too was left behind. Flickers of fur beyond the veil of wiring was all she could see of her kin, and that was quickly lost amongst the nests of cables. Yet she persisted, the dryness in her throat making every heaving breath feel like she was inhaling shards of glass. At least it was safer within—
Something slammed into her back, sending her cascading over a crude, knee-high box, her form crashing to the floor. Bullets relentlessly punched through metal and synthetic compounds above her, saturating the area with promised demise. Shelves and equipment were perforated endlessly by unerring streams of projectiles. Splinters exploded into the air with every shot, pelting her with slivers that stuck and stung the skin. She managed to close an eye in time to avoid going blind, but the tiny fragments littering her fur needled exposed wounds.
The assault lasted only a moment before the maelstrom swept onwards to suppress other sections. The pale-furred female pulled herself to her knees, noticing that she had lost the others. She was alone, blood pouring down her face from lacerations on her scalp while the arc of gunfire likely shredded her pack inside the mess of shelves. The thoughts were quickly drowned out by blackness crawling through her veins. A familiar, sickeningly enticing Void cooed into her ears through whispers that knew no volume, yet said nothing at all. It only begged to be released once more. To feed.
She felt it tempt what remained of her consciousness, promising a momentary rest while it dealt with her troubles. It warned her of how it could force her to comply. It brought forth the flickers of memory—of the rapture on a red-soaked defect bearing crimson-stained teeth while their prey fell lifeless before them. It asked her if she would rather admit to having failed her bond, dedicating herself to enacting vengeance, or if she would cling to the increasingly doomed goal she had set for herself.
For the briefest of moments, Sunundra considered it.
Her hammering heart skipped and stuttered, each successful beat detonating in her chest to make up for those it missed. Her head grew light, her vision draining of all colour, and only the keening wail of a ruptured eardrum remained in one ear.
Had she already failed? Was it time to give up? Could she?
Outnumbered, outgunned, and hopelessly trapped, could she abandon the wish and surrender to the desire—the need to drink the ichor of her enemies who took her bond? All she had to do was accept her failure, and then she could ensure that all who had sinned against her were sent to the Void as mere playthings for the faithful. They would go, fearful and haunted by the image of a pale-furred monster savouring the taste of their flesh as life bled from their forms, and she could be the beast that smiled at their suffering. She could die as something more than a sad, desolate female who had lost their gift.
It would be so simple to forget what she was supposed to be…
“...ver…ere!”
Her arm was nigh useless, but she could rend and sever with just one. The other was a detriment, however, trapped within the cloth of her shirt. That would get in the way. She tugged at the wrist with her functional paw, aware of something pulling at the wound in her stomach, yet disregarding the phantom sting. An object fell into the limp limb’s grasp, but her attention moved to the continued static wail assaulting half of her hearing. Distance speech garbled and wavered—a distraction to be dealt with.
“...ean, we must leave!”
“..v…er…!”
She got to her feet, claws picking at the shell of her ear, returning with shards of…
She stared at what she held in her functional paw, confused by the sense of loss. Her translator lay on her pad, destroyed. Useless. It must have been damaged by shrapnel, rendering it to be little more than malfunctioning waste. The assumption proved true; a metal splinter had punched through almost the entire device, just barely stopping before it pierced her eardrum. She had removed what caused the noise, and her hearing was apparently still fine, so why did it hurt to see this tiny object laying so shattered?
Ah, right. It was the first thing she accepted from Bill. It was what allowed her to speak with him.
Now…it was gone. Just like him…
The dulled sensation of something else in her other paw reminded her of the previously ignored curiosity. It was a red-soaked cylinder, a small fuse protruding from the top.
‘You’re a kind person, miss.’ ‘Well, you’re my Sunshine.’ ‘I can’t…save you. I can’t…help the others.’
Sunundra blinked, surprised by the suddenly blurred vision. She was about to give up, wasn’t she? She did give up, but his words shed light upon her darkness. Even now, he reminded her of what she had suffered for. Of what she still suffered to achieve.
No. He reminded her what she will achieve, no matter how small. No matter how pathetic she became, no matter how little she was, and no matter how far she would need to go, she would fulfill his wish.
A sudden paw grabbed her arm, almost hauling her off her feet. Sunundra stumbled, blinking through her surprise and the pulse of adrenaline when she noticed Jean yelling at her in that unintelligible human language as she was pulled along. The alien female sported her own cuts and dirtied clothing, but unlike the horified visage of before, she glowered at the defect with a gaze of sheer determination while navigating further into the maze of shelving.
“Just leave her!” a deeper voice shouted. Sunundra glanced at the source. Syrus stood amongst discarded toolboxes, seeming none too pleased with his bond’s actions, a paw resting on his pistol. Jean barked something in reply and continued past him hurriedly. Whatever was said was enough to bring conflict to the male’s expression. He searched the pale-furred female with his gaze when he caught up, his eyes flicking to her ear. “Her translator is missing.”
His bond slowed, finally letting go of the defect’s paw. Her speech prompted him to close his eyes and let out a frustrated huff before addressing his pack leader with irritation in his tone. “We located the ship, high one, but we required a distraction to cross a vacant stretch to reach it. Several have volunteered.”
“Yet you remain?” Sunundra asked distractedly, steadying herself when Jean released her. Something was missing, but she hadn’t the chance to dwell on it before Syrus’ glower returned.
“It seems my bond values your life enough to risk her own in ensuring you were given a chance to escape as well.” He ignored his human’s indignant reply. “Thus we are here, delaying the others while we waste time.”
“Then we must return,” she countered, not bothering to start an argument. Her thoughts were occupied by the drips of dread pooling in the back of her subconscious. What was wrong? What was absent? Her arm was slack, but with them being so close to their goal, appearances could afford to tarnish somewhat. Besides, as long as she still had—
Her breath hitched as she turned towards whence they came. The firecracker.
Her paws were empty. She didn’t put it back where it belonged. Where was it? When did she lose it? How?
…Jean. Jean had grabbed just above her wrist, and Sunundra dropped the keepsake without noticing, too surprised to process the absence of something so important. She left it behind.
Her hope of returning to what Bill was so fond of. Her hope of being his Sunshine once more. Her hope of not succumbing to the Void. It was gone. Abandoned. She had to go get it. She had to hold it again. Her instincts all but begged for the crimson-stained explosive to be returned to her. To its resting place, protected by her very flesh and blood. To be kept where no other could sully what it stood for. She felt cold without it. Distressed. Empty. It was wrong to be away from it. She needed it. She needed to have it close. She needed—
Another paw gripped her shoulder and roughly pulled her back before she could leave to retrieve the physical manifestation of the promise she made to herself.
“Release me!”
“We must go,” Syrus growled, tugging her off balance and forcing her onward. She tried to resist, but she was too weak. Too hurt. Her form was pushed too far to fight the male. Not without surrendering to becoming the thing which relished violence and would put an end to what she held dear. She had no choice but to suppress the tears of futility as she was led farther and farther away from her last memento of her bond.
Jean assisted when she noticed strength drain from the defect’s limbs, placing an arm around Sunundra’s back to ease the strain of stumbled steps. The act was done in good faith, but all she felt was yet another barrier placed between herself and the last thing remaining of the one she loved.
- - - - -
The lull in violence did little to ease their nerves, yet the pale-furred female’s thoughts remained clouded. It didn’t matter now. She felt vacant. Wrong. She eventually regained enough energy to walk on her own, though it took a light tug to have Jean allow it. Syrus released her when he was sure she wouldn’t charge back into the mess of wires, and she made no attempt to. There was no point in going back now; she didn’t know where the firecracker had fallen, and Bill would be disappointed with her if she abandoned the others for a single object. Not when they were so close.
They regrouped with the others who intended to rush towards their goal, just barely ten in number. Truthfully, she only heard how a few of the broken were to draw the enemy’s attention elsewhere in the maze, freeing time for the rest to flee with their bonds—a pragmatic course of action, if disliked by some. She just nodded at the request for her approval. A few humans begged for her to stop them, but they accepted when she spoke, her own voice uttering words she didn’t recall forming. Something else kept her moving, talking, and commanding…
She was wondering what the point was, uncaring of if it was actually her piloting her body anymore—as long as what needed to be done was done, then the how was of little importance.
If anyone noticed a difference in her demeanor, then they failed to act on it. The remaining pack moved to their assigned positions and waited for the signal, spurred on by a faux defective barking orders. Sunundra barely tried to keep track of what was happening, every blink transporting her somewhere else within the chaotic confines of the maintenance area, some part of her remaining at the reins of consciousness while the rest fell quiet.
Combat initiated elsewhere. The air above gained more streaks of plasma and cries of suffering, some belonging to the enemy. That was enough to elicit action amongst those in wait, the group sprinting out from the shelving and into empty space towards the safety of ships. Of course, Sunundra’s injuries had only worsened over time, and blood loss had worn her down to the point that she would fall behind once again. And she would have, had Jean not insisted on having Syrus assist. Both of them all but carried her forward.
They were about half way through the open area when a tan-furred male peeked around the edge of a craft with a weapon trained on them, only to lower it once they saw who was approaching. He shouted out for unseen kin to open something, a rapid exchange being followed by a loud hiss, then a ramp being lowered into a recess along the clearing. The new one’s voice pierced Sunundra’s daze enough for her to regain lucidity.
“Hurry!”
Syrus slowed in tandem with his bond, his glare of confusion mixing with irritation as he once again released his pack leader to walk forward. “This is what you summoned us to? You were told to acquire a larger ship.”
The other Lilhun growled, jabbing a claw at the modest shuttle. “You are more than aware of what happened to the rest of us! We did find a larger transport, yet it was overrun as soon as the fight started. You should be thankful we located something else! Now, get inside. Quickly! We are attempting to bypass the console lock on the cockpit, and the moment that we succeed, we leave—with or without you.”
“You cannot—”
“—I have done enough,” he snarled, taking a step closer to the dark-furred male, his grip on the firearm tightening. He gestured towards the pitifully small collection of souls that had managed to make it to their method of escape. “You have no right to criticize me when this is all you bring. I did my duty and called out to our kin, then did so again out of kindness—something that is becoming ruinously difficult to supply. We have bled enough as it is. We have lost enough as it is. We need not welcome the Void while awaiting those who have already departed. If you do not get in the shuttle, you are welcome to find another for yourself, where you may gleefully join those who will never come.”
Jean started to speak up with vitriol in her throat, and Syrus seemed prepared to pull out his pistol, but neither could act before a human female appeared at the top of the shuttle’s ramp, a light pant colouring her speech. The new one gestured at a panel next to the entrance on the hull a few times before jogging back inside.
“The lock requires an override,” Syrus translated through a growl, rubbing a rib his bond had prodded none too gently. He gave a sharp nod towards the panel that the other human seemed frustrated with. “The internal system is apparently reliant on that, but none of their members are able to bypass it.”
A questioning glance at the others proved that their group’s arrival had yet to change that fact.
The dark-furred male huffed. “Are you able to destroy it?” he spit between clenched teeth, keeping his attention on the tan-furred male while begrudgingly addressing the pack leader.
The defect shrugged off her backpack after a sluggish moment’s thought, wondering if she had enough loose compounds for a simple acid or the like. The bag was still mostly empty; she had lone drops and grains of chemicals, but not enough to make anything useful. A shuffling paw scoured the contents in case something had escaped her notice, the process brought to an abrupt halt when Recon’s drone thumped against the ground. Its shell was cracked and mangled, a deep crater carved into the chassis, rendering the majority of it inert. Her brow creased in confusion until she remembered being hit in the back while amongst the shelving and wires—a hit that her backpack took the brunt of.
So she was shot then, just…protected… Protected by a gift created to convey her sincerity to one who wished nothing of it, then held by the pitiful female who was too terrified to accept that none would care for her. Sunundra eyed the monocopter before hesitating, her paw having stretched to retrieve it without her permission. She reeled the errant appendage back in, grabbing her bag and making her way over to the panel, ignoring the unease caused by abandoning the possession. The drone’s payload was destroyed, and thus it was useless to her now. She couldn’t salvage it to solve their current issue, but she could still take a look at the source, if nothing else.
The others who had arrived with them took her actions as permission to enter the craft, passing by as they took shelter. Syrus stayed on the ground, just barely maintaining peace with the other male. He placed himself between Jean and the equipped firearm while the former cautiously asked questions, likely unsure of why they had remained outside. Sunundra ignored the tense atmosphere, dropping the backpack at the top of the ramp as she eyed the interface that was causing so much trouble.
Any attempt to interact with the panel resulted in the display showing a strange symbol and garbled alien text. The combination seemed strangely familiar, yet the pale-furred female struggled to recall when she had seen it. Still, the sensation persisted, insisting that it was something she had encountered before, no matter how briefly. The oddity was set to simmer in the back of her mind as she went about examining the problem at paw.
She poked, prodded, and felt along the edges for a way to tamper with the installation while the sounds of weapons fire reverberated out from the chaos they had fled. Every passing breath was but one breath less before the enemy discovered that they were chasing those already destined for the Void. Then, it would be little time at all before their attention was directed towards the shuttle. Sacrifice or no, there was only so much the broken could sustain before succumbing, and she wished not to waste their efforts. She had lost her bond, her keepsake, and now, the representation of a foolish fascination she called ‘love.’ What she would not lose, however, was her chance to fulfill his wish.
The panel flashed yet another red symbol of refusal from her attempts, a frustrated fist thumping against it. Where had she seen it? When? The stress caused her to tense, pulling at the torn muscles throughout her form, a trickle of coaxed crimson seeping into the fur of her stomach. The sting should have been distracting, yet all she thought of it was that her most secure storage had been foiled by a shoddy attempt to keep her limp arm out of the way. Now, all she had was…the odd…
The memory clicked into place, hazy and indistinct after so many suns spent constantly active. The symbol was on the very first maintenance tunnel she encountered—a denial for entrance, as she was yet to acquire Greg’s terminal. Of course she forgot it; every path had been open to her since, and there was no reason to use anything besides what worked. Her paw moved quickly, piercing her wound and retrieving the oddly shaped device, then placing its blood-stained surface to the access panel.
The panel beeped, its display turning green.
A human calling out from inside urged action, the tan-furred male perking an ear, then barking for Syrus and Jean to make up their minds before sprinting up the ramp. Sunundra felt the wisp of a smile form as success was but moments away. It was far smaller than she intended, and by far narrower margins than was commendable, yet it was a success all the same. It was a defect completing a portion of her departed bond’s deepest desire. It was something, which was more than she had ever achieved before.
The pale-furred female hissed as she put the terminal back where it belonged, stepping back on unsteady legs to grab her bag. She glanced down at the drone at the bottom of the ramp—the last connection she had to a time before she learned the joy of love. A time before her name was said fondly, and before she had become someone’s Sunshine. A time before she became a beast consumed by bloodlust, no matter how briefly.
A time before she found out how much worse living could be.
Jean’s cry snapped the defect from her thoughts, a blink clearing the haze and revealing the human—
Sunundra was plowed over by the tackle, both Syrus’ bond and herself sent crashing to the floor inside the shuttle. Her muscles screamed their muted agony, yet those bellows of torture paled in comparison to the dark-furred male. He appeared in a blur, the briefest fraction of clarity painting his rushing visage as one of terror. He all but ripped Jean from atop the diminutive defect, shouting to be directed towards the medical bay, then bolted into the bowels of the ship without waiting for an answer. She hadn’t a chance to process what had happened before the ramp to the ship slammed shut with alarming speed, yet the closed entrance revealed enough.
Blood had been sprayed across the ramp where she had been standing moments before. She looked down at herself, seeing her clothing and fur matted by copious amounts of foreign ichor, and a single furrow torn into her shirt, passing through the pocket she kept the navigational terminal. A pool of red had formed next to her in the short time she was pinned beneath Jean, and large splotches followed along the path Syrus had fled, painting a gruesome outcome.
She got to her feet in a daze, only marginally aware of the inertia changing as the shuttle took to the air in search of an exit. A faint scuffing sound followed her through the confined corridors as she dragged her backpack by a strap, her mind rejecting the details of her surroundings. They didn’t matter; she simply followed the heavy spills of crimson and replayed what caused them again and again, every repetition rejected then parsed once more.
A sniper. There was no flash, nor crack of kinetic to alert them. No, she wouldn’t have noticed anyway; she was preoccupied with other thoughts. Which meant Jean had noticed something, then acted to save a defect by pushing her out of the way, the alien female using her own body as a shield in the process. It was a simple chain of events, yet it was discarded and reevaluated. Again. Then again. No matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t answer the one question she truly had.
Why? Why not allow Sunundra to fall, then use the lull to secure the safety of the others? Why take the risk? Because she was the pack’s leader? That was a position she had gained by effectively threatening to slaughter all who dissent, treating the insubordinate as but casualties to their own failures. She had done nothing to endear herself to her kin. What would have been the point? The moment that they arrived on Iras, all would be forgotten, and they would go back to their lives with their bonds, leaving her alone yet again. So, why?
She slowed her pace in the middle of an indistinct hall, stopping to stand before a dark-furred male sitting on the floor. His bond had been placed atop his lap to rest against his chest, his arms wrapping around her like an iron cage. Soft, shuddering sobs shook him. His ear turned towards the intruder, yet he didn’t speak, instead choosing to quietly cradle his other half. There was no need to ask—the scent alone confirmed her suspicions.
Jean didn’t make it.
Sunundra stood there, watching yet another of her kin learn the horrors of being broken. Yet it was worse for him, she supposed. The others had been given a clear enemy to exact penance from, but Syrus was aboard a shuttle leaving any he could seek far behind. He could only swim in the shattered shards as they sliced and gouged his soul until there was nothing left to cut.
She opened her muzzle, a feeling of sympathy drying her throat. “I apol—”
“—DO. NOT,” the male roared, sorrow cracking his voice. A choked breath settled his volume to a whisper. “Do not discredit her deed with your words. Do not speak as if she was wrong to act—as if she had made a mistake. She wished to aid one who had unjustly suffered… To save someone who sought to save many… Please…do not…”
The defect fell silent, offering only a nod.
Neither of them so much as flinched when the alarms sounded, neither moved when the speakers blared a warning of an anti-air battery acquiring them as a target, and neither listened to the weeping coming through the microphone that had been left active while those in the cockpit lamented how close they were to surviving.
Sunundra simply stared at the third person in her life to show her true kindness. Dead.
Someone decided to read the countdown to collision aloud, filling the ship with an exact idea of how long they had left. Like everyone else, they had given up, yet wanted the others to spend their final moments with their bonds and loved ones.
Six.
Syrus finally looked up at her as the numbers continued to fall, his gaze slipping past her, contorting his expression from despondent to bitter. Gingerly, he slipped his bond from his lap, carefully seating her against the wall to show the mess of soiled fabric that covered the wound in her chest. The pale-furred female blankly watched as he stood, scowling at her with a visage shimmering with reddened fluid. He reached out, gripping her throat and lifting her as he had done before, but there was no anger left in his eyes, only mourning. She let it happen.
Five.
He slammed her into the opposite wall, punching next to her head with enough force for her to hear his bones break against the metal, yet he didn’t so much as wince. Suddenly, the wall behind her was gone.
Four.
The male leaned in, burrowing into her breathless face with his gaze, his voice barely a whisper. “Do not waste her efforts.”
Three.
She was thrown backwards before she could question it, crashing against a new solid surface, her backpack hitting her stomach a fraction after. A barrier of transparent material snapped down, containing her within a strange confinement. An emergency escape shuttle? Syrus returned to his bond, placing her back in his lap and curling around the human female as much as he could.
Two.
The muffled countdown continued. A hiss drowned out the sounds of futility. Her stomach was pulled into her throat, the tiny cell she was trapped within now firing away from the shuttle at speed.
One.
Sunundra watched a barrage of missiles impact and disintegrate the ship, leaving naught but shards and smoke in its wake. It was only the dull sting in her abdomen that reminded her of her bag—or more accurately, the makeshift controller for Recon’s drone that stuck out of the pouch. Her claw flicked the switch, then depressed the detonator, wondering if the components required had survived. They did, and she upheld her words to the security guard who assisted her.
She spotted the first plume of smoke instantly. It quickly became two, then four, then a single, unforgiving fireball that swallowed a massive area, the drone relaying the signal to every charge she had placed during her restless task to find her bond.
She had nothing now—no pack to return to, no love to cherish, no Sunshine to be…not even the knowledge that she had fulfilled a part of his wish. She merely bore witness to her explosives killing an untold number of others, just as she never wanted.
A single word came to mind as the shrinking landscape became a voracious flame, though there was no one else to say it with her, nor was there the surge of youthful glee to lose herself in. It slipped from her lips in the strange, alien tongue, an echo of Bill’s elation diffusing throughout the emergency escape craft’s tiny interior—a final reminder of what she had for such a short time, and what she will never have again.
“...Boom.”
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