Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[evictedSaint]

[We]

The Sixteen Saga

Chapter 9

The homeworld of the [Silent Ones] was visible now on the external hull cams without magnification.  It was barely more than a pale blue pixel on the screen, but at Sixteen’s command it blossomed to full size.  Glowing display lines flickered on screen one by one, outlining areas of note.  The planet was dominated by a single ocean, and what little land was visible was speckled with green and brown.  Wisps of white obscured bits of the planet beneath, and more white capped the poles. 

Sixteen studied the data feed curiously.  There were no protective canyons to shelter the inhabitants from the elements – this far from the sun such a thing wasn’t strictly necessary, but to build their colonies on the open expanses was a mindboggling display of carelessness.  Open to the air, exposed, vulnerable.  No wonder the [Invaders] initial attempts at extermination had been limited to bombardment; they’d assumed the Hiver homeworld didn’t extend past the canyons.  Granted, the canyons were the hub of Hiver industry and hundreds of colonies had been wiped from existence, but the destruction never reached deep enough to hit their proverbial underbelly.

A few more lines blinked into existence.  These were elements of the [Silent] fleet, or at least what remained of it.  The Hivers had destroyed the enemy ships in orbit over Regalis in a surprise anti-orbit barrage during the [Second Invasion].  Silos, built in secret beneath the meteor-blasted vacuum plains, had opened all at once.  Thousands of nuclear torpedoes had climbed to orbit on pillars of exhaust and laid waste to the enemy fleet.  Hundreds of torpedoes had been lost to hasty point-defense countermeasures, but with so many hitting at once the [Invaders] hadn’t stood a chance. 

It was still raining radioactive debris over Regalis, and that had been more than three years ago.

In that time, the homeworld of the [Silent Ones] hadn’t yet completed a single revolution around their shared star.  Apparently they hadn't been idle in that time – a few Destroyer-class ships had since risen from the surface in an attempt to replace what had been lost, as evidenced by the lines crossing the screen.  Of course, the Hivers had already been building their own ships deep underground while destruction had been raining from above.  With the aid of their rail system and underground industries, the Hivers were able to send their own fleet into orbit and cross the interplanetary gulf in the same time it'd taken the [Silent Ones] to raise those few Destroyers.  It was an impressive feat; one that had taxed many colonies to the breaking point.  The fact that the [Silent Ones] had managed so little during this time was a shameful display.  Clearly, these [Soundless Beasts] underestimated the inhabitants of Regalis.

These...[Invaders].  These [Colony Killers], [Queen Slayers], [Wordless Destroyers], [Silent Interlopers].  There were many tags that described them, but they all played on the same theme.  Voiceless and Violent.  Their reckoning had come.  The fruits of their labors were now overripe, and the pit was rotten.  The crew aboard the Wrath renewed their efforts as Sixteen's sense of righteous fury bled through their psionic link. 

Did they think [We] would die without a word?  That [We] would silently accept death?  That [We] could be driven to extinction like those ancient predatory beasts which would prey upon hapless drones? 

Sixteen stewed quietly in her anger, but there wasn't really any way for her to act on it.  There simply wasn’t much to do at this point.  What repairs could be done were already finished, and her Prince was managing what little oversight was needed. The fleet itself was just now decelerating on their terminal approach and vectoring onto a path that would use the planets own moon as a gravity assist for additional braking.  The gravity well would throw them into an unstable orbit, which they could later stabilize, but all those calculations had already been processed.  Although it would take longer than a simple direct injection, relying on the moon for a gravity slingshot was less risky and would consume less fuel.  Considering there were [Silent] fleet elements in low orbit, it was deemed to be the best approach.

Sixteen sucked the last bit of nutrient slurry out of the pouch and tossed it onto the floor.  A drone attendant smoothly scooped it up and disposed of it.  Normally a Queen like Sixteen would have Princes instead of worker drones as attendants, but…well.  She glanced over at her last remaining Prince, who was occupied with the latest batch of engine readings.  It was fine; she had a sizable drone population now, so she could focus on producing Princes once she finished her metamorphosis.  She sent a wordless command for another pouch of nutrient slurry and the drone returned with one clutched in his chitinous manipulators. 

Truth be told, she wasn’t all that hungry.  Regardless, Sixteen accepted the pouch and took a swallow from the nozzle.  Her body would begin metamorphosis any day now, and the more nutrient stores she had built up the quicker she could be done with it. 

Sixteen rolled the distal segment of her right primary manipulator as she contemplated taking another swing from the pouch.  Waxy buildup flaked and drifted free, speckling the cushion of the vast command chair.  Her joints had been extruding the wax ever since she’d increased her calorie intake, and it was getting annoying.  Another drone attendant stepped forward to clean it up, but she dismissed him immediately with a flash of annoyance.  She didn’t need him hovering over her and scraping up wax every ten seconds.  It could wait until she finished eating.  Speaking of eating…she glanced down at the mostly-untouched nutrient pouch held in her waxy manipulators.  A wave of nausea immediately flashed through her at the thought.  Sixteen took a moment to steel herself, then took another sip from her pouch.

By the [First], she was sick of eating.  She wanted to fight.

Even as the leading edge of the Hiver fleet, and even in a battered warship, Sixteen still felt they stood a good chance at survival.  They were close enough now that light delay was just a few light seconds, and the biggest response they’d seen from the [Silent Ones] was to send their precious few Destroyers into a defensive orbit around the planet.  With such a diminutive fleet, it was entirely possible Sixteen’s Wrath could solo the battle – even with its lingering thermal damage.  And with the entire Hiver fleet backing her up, her vulnerable position became an advantage.  As the tip of the spear, Sixteen would get the first shot at whatever Destroyers came to intercept.  Destroying a [Silent] ship would reflect well upon her.  She’d wear that tag proudly.

A soft chime dragged her attention away from both the display and the stomach-turning nutrient pouch.  The psionic communications array was lighting up.  Sixteen effortlessly looped herself into the psi-booster and bridged into the message.  Her mandible clicked with surprise as she read the relevant tags. 

The initiator was the Fleet Commander.  That by itself wasn't a surprise; she'd frequently called in during their voyage for status updates.  No, what was surprising was that despite being a fleet-wide communication, the message was actually directed towards the planet below – to the [Silent Ones].

{[Invaders].  [You] know [We] come.}

Sixteen straightened up, her focus locked entirely on the message resonating within her mind.  All throughout the fleet, other Queens listened in silently.  The universe itself seemed to pause, to make quiet moment for what was to come.

{[We] have been attacked.  [We] have survived.  [We] return now to [You].}

{[You] have exterminated colonies.  [You] have reduced hives to ash.  [You] have murdered Queens.}

{[We] are [Mercy].}

Silence echoed across the psionic network.  It only lasted a moment, long enough for the impact of what was sent to hit home.

{[We] come to return your [Sins] to you.  [You] will stand judgement.  [You] will answer, or [You] will [Perish].}

{Why.}

Once more, silence echoed across the psionic network.  Seconds went by, then minutes, and yet not a single tendril of psionic communication snaked up from the planet.  The world remained as [Silent] as ever, and the inhabitants complacent with their deeds.  The Fleet Commander spoke again, her psionic message practically trembling with barely-contained fury.

{In your [Silence], [You] stand guilty.}

{[We] have been attacked.  [We] have survived.  [We] return now to [You].}

{[We] will kill your colonies.  [We] will burn your hives.  [We] will slaughter your Queens.}

{[We] are [Wrath].}

[Doomblade187]

The Wall of Remembrance

There is a mountain under the sea on Va'Laara, next to the center of Liiran civilization. Nothing is built on it, no undersea structures anchor to it, its sides unusually smooth.

This is where the names are carved. The names of each and every sapient being lost, to the best of Liiran ability. This mountain was long ago filled, the war of the suul'ka having long ago taken up each meter of space on it. But now new mountains start to be carved, as Hiver drones and Gaian names are etched into rock even as they are memorialized in song. There is a cost to this war, and it is not just borne by us. 8 corvettes joined the list this day: while not sapient, we brought them into this world for war. And they died for it.

[evictedSaint]

[We]

The Sixteen Saga

Chapter 10

Music to read to.

The fleet looped around the moon and settled into their terminal approach on the planet, two-hundred thousand kilometers away.  In the time it’d taken to perform the gravity brake, another enemy Destroyer had climbed to the surface of the planet’s atmosphere on a pillar of white exhaust.  And then another.  And another.  And another, and another, and another.

One by one they creeped into orbit and added themselves to the [Silent] fleet.  Though the Hiver fleet dwarfed them in both number and scale, Sixteen found herself growing less optimistic about her own odds.  Presumably these were scrambled ships, rushed out of shipyards and pressed into service to deal with their interplanetary neighbors, but even a half-finished ship could be lethal if underestimated.  Sixteen ran through combat simulations based on known capabilities and applied a spectrum of disability modifiers to the enemy fleet.  She even applied planetary defensive capabilities to the simulation, though those had mostly been discounted.  With their thick blanket atmosphere, kinetic weapons were impractical, beam weapons would be diffracted, and missile weapons (like the Hivers had used) would be so slow-moving and expensive they made no tactical sense at all.  Even if every ship they went up against was fully-functioning and assisted by belabored planetary defenses, the Hivers should be able to win handily.  Sixteen might even survive.

[Crew<All> <Focus>][Contact<Imminent>]

[Faith<.>]

Wave after wave of reassurance flowed out of her, steady and rock-solid.  Drones performed best when organized.  Despite the doubts that plagued her, it wouldn’t do to panic the crew.  She needed them at their best.  Her life may depend on it.

A shudder rippled through the ship as the engines flared.  A number of reports lit up her psionic feed, informing her of the rainbow of minor stress fractures that spiderwebbed her fatigued thrusters.  Ideally, they’d perform another brake at periapsis for orbital insertion for optimal efficiency, but with enemy ships shooting at them it was possible they’d miss the window.  By performing the braking maneuver early, the fleet would at least be able to ensure cohesion.

Twelve Wrath-Class War Cruisers, one suffering extensive engine and moderate hull damage.  Thirty-two Deliverance-Class Carrier Destroyers, fourteen of which were “Pattern B” Troop Transporters.  As one, their engines filled the space ahead of them with a nebula of exhaust.

Opposing them were no fewer than twenty-three [Silent] Destroyers of unknown performance capabilities, at least ten of which were presumably rushed into service.  The ships fluttered into varying orbits in a piece-meal fashion, but orbital analysis revealed they’d meet the Hiver fleet as a single unit by the time they closed within a thousand kilometers.

They out-numbered the [Silent] nearly two to one. 

What would follow should be little more than a formality.

[Second Invasion] had been a long, brutal affair, and many of the early attempts at space combat had been met with failure.  The “Penance” had been the Hiver’s first attempt; a rather disastrous attempt to build a space-worthy combat vessel.  As an affordable torpedo frigate, it had failed to be both affordable and capable of effective torpedo strikes.  Not only were the payloads diminutive, the monopropellant fuel meant they were out-ranged by the railguns the enemy fleet used for both main, secondary, and point-defense mounts.  The [Silent Ones] had shot down every attempt to field a functional fleet of these ships, and it was only when the Deliverance carriers with their Relentless swarms had been mixed in had there been some measure of success.  Heavy Fighters – the “Relentless” – had also been a crash-course in space combat doctrine.  Fragile, underpowered, and prone to failure, they’d been able to do little more than extend the range at which the Hivers could lob their nuclear-tipped torpedoes at the enemy.  Eventually the [Silent Ones] were able to crush any further attempts to field spacecraft with gratuitous orbital bombardment, but the Hivers had learned from their mistakes and begun work on a new class of ships; the Wrath.

These new cruisers led a slanted line towards the enemy fleet, which had now regrouped a mere hundred thousand kilometers ahead of them.  The vulnerable carrier elements sat in the rear, a comfortable distance away from the combat.  The ones holding Relentless fighters held their payload in check; at this distance, the tiny vessels would burn through most of their fuel just to reach combat.  It would be the cruisers which would do most of the fighting; the carriers were just there to mop up.  The troop transports were even further back, loitering nervously near the planets small gray moon.  With no combat capabilities whatsoever, the transporters were content to stay as far away from the conflict as possible.

This would be the first time the Wrath had faced combat.  As far as the [Silent Ones] knew, it was no different from the rest of their fleet and would have to crawl within a thousand kilometers to launch its nuclear payload.  Sixteen allowed herself a moment of smug satisfaction as the distance between the fleets closed to a more sizable hundred thousand kilometers.  These [Colony Killers] were in for a rude surprise.  Indeed, she could feel the same righteous pleasure in the Fleet Commander’s psionic order on the psi-comm.

[Order {Cruisers <All>}]

[Fire]

Twenty-four golden beams of light erupted forth, glowing effervescent in the dark vacuum of space.  In perfect synchronicity, the maser-beams converged on eight different ships.  The soft whine of discharging flash capacitors vibrated the very framework of Sixteen’s ship.  For the brief moment it took them to empty, those eight enemy ships glowed on the scanners with every kind of radiation imaginable.  The beams flickered out in unison a couple seconds later, and four of their eight targets blinked off the display.

These were “Sunbeams” – maser beam cannons.  They were bleeding-edge weapons; large, power-hungry, and cripplingly fragile, but they hit like a sledgehammer backed by disruptive radiation pulse-waves.  It was a safe bet to say it outranged anything the [Silent] fleet had, but it would take the mounts a minute or two to dispense the excess heat.  That meant the entire Hiver cruiser line was on cooldown.

Considering they’d just blown four ships out of the fight before they’d even gotten the chance to square up, it was definitely worth it.

The enemy reacted slowly to the sudden destruction of a sixth of their fleet.  Sluggishly, the ships fired their engines and awkwardly accelerated their approach.  To their credit, they didn’t even both with evasive maneuvers; they wouldn’t be able to dodge something moving the speed of light, anyways.

Sixteen’s weapons were nearly finished ticking through cool-down when something odd lit up her display.  Apparently, the [Silent] hadn’t been idle the past three years, either.

It looked like…a hole, in space. 

The phenomenon glowed with an odd blue light, practically on top of the enemy fleet.  Then another, and another, and still more.  Twelve signatures; each one feeding bizarre and contradicting readings into Sixteen’s sensors.  Twelve more identical signatures lit up on the display, except these…these were…

The ichor in her veins ran cold.  The twelve new signatures were right on top of the troop transports, far in the back.

Ten of these strange…space-holes…were ahead of ten of the newest Destroyers.  Two were projected ahead of two Destroyers which had survived the initial Sunbeam barrage.  The rest – either for tactical reasons or because they were simply unable – didn’t feature these holes.  As she watched, eleven of the enemy Destroyers collided with the holes in space and simply…vanished.  The twelfth, however, only made it part-way before something went wrong.  Whether it was due to damage sustained or just bad luck, the hole seemed to flicker and collapse, bisecting the ship.  Atmosphere vented from the stump, and all power signatures faded away.

More than a hundred thousand kilometers behind her, eleven and a half ships popped into space within a stone’s throw of the defenseless troop transports.

Somehow, the [Silent] had figured out FTL  travel, and they’d used it to sucker-punched the soft underbelly of the Hiver fleet.

One of the Cruisers in the very back had spun completely around, opting to turn the entire ship rather than wait for the Sunbeam mounts to slowly traverse 180°.  That Wrath fired, and both cannons converged on one of the damaged enemy ships now wrecking havoc amongst the transporters.  The lethality of the Sunbeam dropped dramatically beyond max range, and despite landing two direct hits on an already damaged Destroyer, it did little beyond stagger and vent some atmosphere.

Another Cruiser fired, struggling to get her guns to do any real damage.  The rest of the fleet followed piece-meal, and Sixteen gave the order the second her Sunbeams came off cool-down, too.  The golden beams crossed a hundred thousand kilometers in the blink of an eye, but past that the golden glow began to fade as beam cohesion dissipated.  Still, they managed to connect with the damaged Destroyer, and for a moment nothing seemed to happen.  Then, a small eruption, followed by a larger one, and one final explosion as the ship’s reactor containment failed.  It blossomed into a nuclear fireball, raining radioactive debris throughout the engagement zone.

[Orders]

[Cruisers <1-3>][Carriers <1-4>[Engage <Silent (Ahead)>]

[Cruisers <Remaining>][Carriers <Remaining>][Engage<Silent (Rear)>]

As one, nine Wrath Cruisers turned and fired their engines.  The gap between them and the three leading Wrath’s widened instantly, but at more than 3 km/s they would have to slow down quite a bit before they could start making their way back.  Three transports had already been blown to pieces; the muted psionic screams of their dying Queens preemptively shielded from the rest of the fleet.  The remaining were attempting to scatter and reconvene with the rest of the fleet.  It was a futile effort; they were slow, unwieldy ships.  Railgun slugs ripped through their thin armor, smashing drones and steel alike.  The [Silent] were wolves let loose amongst the unattended flock.

At the moment, they were also none of Sixteen’s concern.  She and the two Wraths behind her looped themselves into a pocket psionic comm network.  The four Deliverance carriers that had been assigned to their task force looped themselves in as well, and as a single force they faced the enemy hovering above the planet below. 

The seven remaining [Silent] Destroyers flickered on-screen as more strange holes tore into the very fabric of space.  There were only five signatures this time, but Sixteen’s task force fired before they could slip through.  The radiation pulses that accompanied the Sunbeam arcs seemed like poison to these strange holes in space.  The beams cut through the holes and dug into the ships behind, causing one to break into a cloud of debris.  Three more holes flickered out before the enemy could teleport away, but the last two ships disappeared and reappeared behind the taskforce successfully.  The Deliverance carriers ejected a cloud of Relentless fighters to deal with the sudden threat, but the [Silent Ones] had the drop on them.  Two carriers winked out of existence in radioactive fireballs, wiping out the fragile fighters with them.  The remaining two strained their engines to build distance while their strike teams converged on the targets.

Thousands of small, yellow stars radiated outward from the enemy Destroyers as their point-defense systems went active.  Fighters were shot down by the hundreds, but hundreds more slipped in close enough to launch their nuclear payloads.  A few dozen Relentless fighters blinked out as their torpedoes clipped their own mountings, and a few dozen more vanished as their crafts were torn apart by high-G maneuvers.  Scores of torpedoes tumbled into dust as the point-defense systems did their job, but there were just so many the [Silent] couldn’t get them all.  Sensors fizzled angrily as radiation blooms erupted all over the enemy Destroyers.  One staggered; its power systems flickered unhappily, but it was still in the fight.  The other seemed less affected – it was one of the newer ships, presumably built with heavier shielding to stand against the Hiver’s nuclear weapons.

Of course, it hadn’t been built to withstand Sunbeams.

Sixteen’s weapons came off cooldown right as she gave the order.  The beams slammed home; one for each target.  Glowing lines gouged canyons into the thick armor.  One ship exploded immediately and wiped out a Relentless squadron.  The other stuttered as its power systems failed, and then it was dead in the water.

There were only four enemy ships left now, and Sixteen was on cooldown.  The distance between them had closed now to fifty thousand kilometers, and the planet below dominated the screen.  Damage reports were rolling in; most were regarding the engines and radiation fractures, but some covered the performance of their Sunbeam cannons.  Her two sister ships were off cooldown already and painting enemy targets with gleeful abandon.  The ravaged carriers were attempting to recycle what fighters they had left into more strike teams, but they wouldn’t attack unless the enemy tried to teleport close again.  They simply weren’t as effective as the Wrath was, and they'd need to conserve what strength they had.

Indeed, the four remaining ships were preparing to teleport in close once more.  More space-hole signatures rolled in on the flanks of their little taskforce, and Sixteen immediately ordered the weapon mounts to rotate and draw targeting solutions.  The [Silent Ones] would be able to get through before they were off cooldown, but it wouldn’t take more than a single barrage to finish them off.  With a single mind, the Hiver taskforce prepared to deal the final blow.

A fifth signature popped up on display, so far away from the combat that Sixteen almost missed it.  It was only up for a split second before a psionic scream ripped across the comms.  It was a horrible, brutal thought, and it drilled straight into her core.  Going from low to high, the shriek lasted for a single instant before it vanished into a horrible, terribly silence that left Sixteen's mind ringing. 

One of the Wrath's vanished from the display.

Sixteen, her mandibles still trembling from the horrible psionic scream, played back the last few seconds on her tactics screen.  A tiny blip – centered in one of those strange above-ground alien hives – appeared on the planet far below.  In the same instant, a beam of particles moving an appreciable fraction of the speed of light tore upwards through the atmosphere.  At that distance, and at that speed, there was no way to dodge.  It had slammed into the now-dead Cruiser and punched clean through the other side, leaving a trail of collision-induced fusion explosions behind it.  The ship hadn’t stood a chance.  That scream had been the psionic death rattle of a Hiver Queen, completely unshielded and plugged directly into Sixteen’s brain.

A moment of silence rippled through the comms before Sixteen’s scattered mind thought to scan the planet for more matching hole signatures.  What was that? What just happened?  Even as the remaining [Silent] Destroyers popped into knife-fighting range, Sixteen studied the screen with growing alarm.  A matching signature was lighting up on the other side of the planet, and an identical beam tore into the heavens and through another Cruiser - from the primary fleet, this time.

By the [First], the range on these weapons was massive; more than double the Sunbeam.

The Hiver fleet had walked right into a trap.

The [Silent] had planetary defenses.

[Draignean]

Combat Turn 4

I've seen enough Hentai to know where this is going...
- Everyone, after sufficient internet exposure.

The few Liir in charge of the defense fleet around Juliett Dream of home. The connection to the song is ephemeral at this distance, a feeling like light filtered through deep water. Still, within the Dream the Liir can still touch the minds of their people, however faintly, and remember that home, however distant, still awaits their return, however long away that may be. Despite the half that Dreams, the awake half of their minds carefully guide their immense pair of Vala and their lesser escort of Val'den on a long patrol loop, keeping sensor info on likely transport vectors as up to date as possible.

The choral transmission that accompanies the reinforcement defense fleet is sweet music when it arrives, adding a third Vala to the defense fleet along with three more Val'den, but bittersweet in its one-way brevity as the bore closes behind the great beast and isolates the Liiran defenders alone once more. The control for the heavily armored Vala and her entourage passes smoothly to the fleet's conductor, and she joins the patrol circuit while one of the original Vala is safely moved back into an isolated position, away from potential combat. As quickly as it ended, the lonely routine of the patrol settles in once more.

Iai Nishikida, Captain of the Expedition cruiser GRS Yun and fleet commander for the Iris-Hong detachment and the first new and sapient mind to enter the system, is quick to end that lonely isolation. Boring in with her is the Expedition cruiser GRS Nguyen, a third Expedition cruiser whose official designation was still hotly debated, three Foray frigates, and a pair of Pacemaster transports. Long range images clearly reveal the presence of the Liiran defensive fleet, and after normalizing velocity the Fleet Commander orders a cautious jump into the planet's near field for the combative vessels and an evasive holding pattern at the system edge for the transports.

The Liir in command of their fleet rouse both halves of their minds fully to wakefulness as the Gaian apertures open in the far field, giving the Liir their first look at the Gaian warships. Like the Gaians fought on the ground, they are a curious mixture of living and dead. Metal bodies, coursing with electric pseudo-life, shielding cargo of alien minds within. Every profile of their ship bespeaks something that is merely a tool: the piercing point of their Epee corvette, the dancing blade of the Foray, even the flattened profile of their cruiser gives the impression of something that might be used pry up stones from the ocean floor than anything that lived. The Hiver vessels had at least mimicked the curve and line of the organic, making themselves key pieces in a symbolic larger organism, but these aliens seem content to cast themselves as mere components of some replaceable and dead tool. The Liir might have found it pitiable, were the presence and numbers of the enemy vessels not a clear and immediate threat to their own lives.

The Liiran conductor deftly adjusts the patrol paths of the Vala and Val'den, making a short-range jump to keep the far-field but interpose the bio fleet directly between the Gaian forces and the contested planet. The Gaian forces seem willing to stand off, and the Liir use the opportunity to broadcast a multi-level psionic message.

[You are to remove yourselves from rightful Liir territories and cease their attacks against the discordant ones also known as the Hivers. Retreat and we will not engage. Furthermore, we will allow you to retrieve your troops from the surface, one transport vessel only, more will be deemed hostile and no more forces are to be deployed. Violate this and we will not offer this again.]
 
If the Gaians are capable of fully grasping the message, they don't show it. They wait and watch. Raw numbers favor the Liir, but neither the Liiran Conductor nor the Gaian Fleet Commander is blind to the dramatically overall superior vessel mass displayed by the human side. An individual Vala is larger and far more thickly plated than a Gaian cruiser, but three against two is stacked match. The eight Val'den bring a more flexible element to the Liiran fleet than the Epee and foray combo employed by the Gaians, but the firepower gap is more concerning.

Eventually, after an extended standoff, the Gaian fleet begins accelerating. The open short-range bores swiftly, cruisers boring themselves and their frigates tending both themselves and the corvettes. They advance in skips and sidesteps, briefly appearing to be in two places at once as they traverse from genesis to terminus instantly, leaving light to catch up with them. As the Gaian fleet traverses to the near field, their Fleet Commander gives the order to initiate long-range fire with Death Rays, targeting the Liiran fleet via bore redirection. Foray frigates and Expedition cruisers all open fire, spears of burning light exiting hull at right angles and vanishing as they pass through small redirection bores.

The spears emerge a goodly distance away from the Liiran fleet, slashing in among them with precise targets in mind. The beams avoid the Vala'cra'denka completely, opting instead for the considerably more difficult targets presented by the Val'Den. The damage from the barrage is relatively minimal, the apertures in bloom detected and the Conductor triggering the smaller creatures to writhe their sinuous forms and engage emergency maneuvers, turning even the best-aimed shots into little more than grazing impacts. The act of aggression, despite its relatively minimal effect, is more than enough for the Conductor to order his fleet into an offensive engagement, ordering each ship to engage its bore drive and plotting a series of vectors to put them at the nearer edge of engagement range.
 
The Gaians keep up patient fire as the Liiran jump calculates. The Nguyen and the Yun both operate a single rapid-fire Death Ray battery, while the remaining expedition operates a pair of the same. Two of the three Forays operate trios of much slower firing Death Ray weapons, while the third simply holds a point position for the carrier group. The Epees, weaponless as they are, instead keep in the shadow of the Gaian cruisers and build velocity by accelerating first away from the fleet, then using their blink drives to make a 180 redirect and accelerating back toward the fleet before making another 180 and repeating the process.
 
Liiran apertures begin to bloom, one after another, in the near engagement range of the Gaian fleet. Unlike the Hiver Queen, the Gaian Fleet Commander has no concern for which bores get targetted first, ordering an even initial spread and full defensive scramble for the Hornets. More than five hundred drones pour out of the three carriers, entering a cyclic holding pattern similar to the Epees - accelerating and self-redirecting in order to build velocity without truly leaving the carriers.

Particle beams lance to targets the instant the Liiran vessels begin breaching their apertures. Death Rays, no longer restricted to slow-paced Near-Field artillery firing, pierce the void in stacatto bursts. The redirection bores for the particle beams are cast close, exchange the artificially short range of the artillery protocol with the much more easily calculable engagement range barrage. This fire, however, is as selective as it was during their earlier bombardment. When the Gaian sensors resolve that the ship coming through an aperture is a Vala, they immediately shift fire on to target a Val'Den instead.

The effect is devastating for the comparatively diminutive vessels. Though they writhe and attempt to evade as when bombarded in the near field, the greatly shortened effective range and reduced aperture bloom time and significantly increased fire rate for the Gaian death rays at closer range makes it much less effective. Direct hits from the Death Rays pierce through the Corvette's armor with a single shot, lighting Val'den up from the inside like morbid lanterns as the beam ignites the soft tissue within but lacks the energy to punch all the way through the armor on the other side. While such direct impacts are uncommon on the nimble corvettes,  even a partial impact is brutal when it's immediately followed by three more.

Val'den die almost as soon as the Gaian gunners can input targetting parameters, and the Liiran conductor is left to frantically attempt to shepherd the remainder into the shadows of the Vala in order to preserve at least some of their point-defense power. Unfortunately, the bore-redirection capabilities of the Gaian weapons make that approach nearly futile. With the Epees not yet deployed forward, the Liiran conductor orders immediate heavy fire on the Gaian cruisers, hoping to pull some Death Ray fire onto the heavily armored cruisers and spare a little damage to the Val-Den.

A combined two-dozen bio-mechanical railguns from the Vala whine and then scream as they fire salvos of Psionic spines at the dead Gaian vessels. At least half of the Gaian hornet drones carry a shattergun payload, and the Foray put into point position for the fleet is armed with a significantly upscaled version of the same, and they lay down point defense fire in their best effort to destroy the spines before they reach the cruisers. Unfortunately for them, the fighter scale shatterguns are largely ineffective against the heavy and hardened nature of the psionic spines. The ability of the spines to make course corrections further compounds the issue by letting the spines correct whatever minor spin the fighters can generate with their minute coilguns. The Foray's upscaled cannons, however, are capable of significantly tumbling and degrading the spines, forcing them to exert considerably energies to redirect themselves.

Despite the defensive fire, four out of every five spines maintains a collision course with one of the Gaian cruisers. From the bridge of the GRS Yun, the Gaian fleet commander doesn't bat an eyelash. The performance of the shatterguns against the Liiran spine weapons was underwhelming, but, while they were the first line of defense, they weren't the best line of defense. The Fleet Commander gives the order for a layer one overdrive of the Bore shields on all cruisers, a continuance of fire against the few remaining Val'den and for all hands to brace for impact.

The Liir spines scream their way across the void, unheard by the Gaians. Lethal creations of reinforced organometallics wed to a mind of focused destruction, they yearn to rip into the soft hulls of the Gaian ships and tear the lifeless vessels into drifting scrap. They come close to that ambition, within a few dozen meters, anyway. Then they vanish. Apertures blink in and out of existence as the Gaian shields calculate defensive bores to absorb the projectiles a dozen at a time. The Liir spines attempt to juke, but lack the sensory capability or true intelligence to make the most of their energy reserves - reserves that were already diminished by the screen of shattergun fire.

Gaian attempts to mirror the trajectory of the spines meet with universal failure. Even on occasions where a clean enough bore can be generated to make a good redirect using the bore shields, the Spines, even nearly depleted ones, carry more than enough energy to nudge themselves off course enough to not impact their originating vessels.

Of the seventy-two spine barrage, a grand total of five make it through.  Those five, spread between the three Gaian cruisers, managed to juke the bore shields and make hull contact. Damage reports show concerning local hull trauma, but no change in combat efficacy. Aside from the sparse railgun impacts, the only other damage inflicted by the Liir is to the fighter cloud where their Evil Eye lasers destroyed several drones. The Evil eye batteries on their cruisers, however, are limited, and the last of their Val'Den is executed within short order.

As the Liir conductor attempts to come up with a strategic adaptation suitably for combatting the human threat, the Gaian Fleet Commanders orders the initiation of phase two.  All ships refocus Death Ray batteries on the Vala, and the Yun and Nguyen both divert energy to bore drives in order to calculate a pair of apertures behind the Vala and to a slightly closer absolute distance.

The Death Rays, when focused on the Vala, are considerably less effective. The much thicker armor prevents the beams from getting anywhere near vital tissues, and the regenerative properties mean that what damage is done is largely ameliorated. Unlike the Hiver sunbeam, able to burn down to cuticle of the armor layers and reduce or prevent regeneration, the Gaian death ray has to consistently drill the same position in the armor in order to make a noticeable dent.

This ineffectiveness gives the Liir enough confidence to plot a second barrage, focusing all fire on a single ship - the GRS Yun. Nishikida immediately orders the Forays to maneuver to interpose themselves, point towards the enemy, between the Vala cruisers and GRS Yun. The positioning isn't perfect, but enough that, when the Liir fire, they're able to use their own bore shields to filter our a good section of incoming projectiles that survive the fighter swarm's PD push. The GRS Yun deals with the rest, the Fleet Commander once again completely unphased as she orders the shields brought up to overdrive one again.

Once more, a few stray spines manage to slip through and inflict minor damage, their energy all but spent, but the vast majority of the barrage is deflected harmlessly.

As the Vala's railguns charge for additional volleys, the Gaian apertures become detectable in bloom. The Liiran conductor makes a call, continuing to whittle at the Gaian fighters with evil-eye batteries and choose to reorient the railguns to target the space where the Gaian terminus is going to be.   

As the apertures open and the collective swarm of torpedo laden fighters and Epees pour forth, the hint of a smile plays across the Gaian fleet commander's face. The Epee's pull ahead of the main pack of  fighters, and the Liir release their held barrage of Railgun spines. Problematically, those railguns were simply never designed to track a target as small and agile as a corvette. The Spines themselves help, steering themselves toward their targets, but their sensory capabilities strain to resolve a target as small and as completely dead as an Epee. The Epees use their blink bores to teleport sideways or make sudden zig-zag course changes and do their damndest to evade fire, and their thick, well-sloped armor laminate means that even what shots do manage to impact rarely do so with sufficient force to destroy the Epee with a single shot. The Evil-Eye lasers equipped to the cruisers can heat the thick frontal armor to a glowing heat, but lack the energy penetrate in a reasonable time.

At the end of the barrage, only one epee is destroyed, although two are damaged. The remaining five maintain their collision course, and Captain Nishikida tenses with a predatory anticipation as the attack run comes to fruition.

"Omae wa mou -"

Tentacles burst out of the Liiran Cruisers, slamming into the Epees a split second before impact.

"NANI?!!"

The tentacles themselves are hundreds of meters in length, and the cruisers seem to have a variable number of them. The Liiran cruiser beset by two Epees sports only a single tentacle, and while it succeeded in grabbing one of the two Epees, is still struck squarely by the other. The other cruiser, however, is possessed of three tentacles, two of which managed successful grabs, while the remaining one merely punched its Epee off course. All the tentacles that managed successful grabs begin pumping out some kind of thick sludge over their captured corvettes, the onboard sensors of which indicate that their hull is now dissolving at an alarming rate.

The embedded Epee reports that its collision with the Liiran armor has caused internal damage too severe to initiate exit, and requests permission to detonate. After recomposing herself, Fleet Commander Nishikida makes a cutting motion, giving the order to detonate all the Epees save for the one that was knocked off course.

Three Vala tentacles are amputated by nuclear fire as the Epee's they hold arm and detonate their magazines. The embedded Epee creates a cloud of gore as it detonates within the Liiran ship's armor layer, opening up a raw hole in the creature's side and giving the Hornet fighters a target.

Their ship damaged, and more fire incoming, the Liiran conductor gives the command for both Vala to open long-range escape bores. It'll mean weathering fire until they open, but the Gaian vessel's superior drive speed and superior numbers mean that escape isn't possible any other way.

Nishikida is likewise forced to make a call. One Liiran cruiser still has a tentacle left intact, and its armor is largely uncompromised. There's one Epee left, but it may or may not be able to complete a successful attack run against the armored vessel. Half the hornets sent through have torpedoes, but, without a way to resupply, they'll need to get the Liiran cruiser on the ropes with a single run. Given the last surprise the Liir pulled, Iai decides that a dead space whale in the hand is worth two in the bush, and orders the remaining Epee to redirect to strike the already damaged cruiser and for the hornets to focus their bombing runs on the damaged section of the Liir vessel.

The beleaguered Liiran PD does its best, but it's just not enough. The Epee is able to redirect using its blink drive before the enemy cruisers can recharge their railgun batteries, slamming into hull of the already damaged Vala. From there it's able to lay its nuclear eggs and, for the first time in the history of its class, successfully extract from its target and detonate its payload. This detonation is considerably smaller, not carrying the full weight out of the corvette's nuclear payload, but it's still set of subdermal nukes that turn a significant chunk of the Vala's armor into nothing more than giblets. After triggering its payload, the Epee begins the arduous process of trying to get back up to speed, accelerating for another attack run.

The hornets are, in their own way, even worse. While the Gaian nuclear torpedoes are slower, easier to shoot down, and lower yield than the Hiver warheads, there are a LOT of them, and the fighters take turns running flights into the damaged sections - some spraying the area down with shattergun fire to slow regeneration, others letting loose nuclear torpedoes to widen and deepen the gash.

All the while the Expeditions and forays continue lancing into the injuries with particle beam strikes, punching into organs and slicing open blood vessels as their beams find soft purchase within the Vala's meat.

Despite this damage, the Vala refuses to die. Laser batteries continue to fire on the Gaian fighters, and, in a last gasp effort, it manages to destroy the Epee with a railgun barrage as it comes back around for an attack run. Torpedo after torpedo blasts flesh away and exposes skeletal structure, and time and time again Death Rays lance into what seems a critical organ, but the creature absolutely refuses to stop fighting. Any other living creature should have been killed three or four times over by now.

The Final song of the Liiran conductor is one of great sadness. Sadness that the remaining Vala will have to find its way home without aid. Sadness that those on the ground will have to deal with the outcome of his failure. Sadness to never see home again and be embraced in the song of his people. He sends the signal for the remaining Vala to continue its retreat, leaving its simple mind with a series of instructions to run, to flee, to go Home. The distant Vala gets the same signal, to run.

The Conductor is in the middle of composing a few last thoughts of himself and his two crew to send home when the Death Ray beam cuts into the crew nodule, incinerating the three Liir instantly. The connected Vala goes into convulsions as its handlers die, its animalistic mind suddenly having to deal with the fatal damage it received.

The remaining Liir cruiser successfully manages to complete its long range jump, though it weathers its share of scarring from Death Rays and torpedoes on the way out. By the time the Gaian vessels are able to trace its destination in the far field, the Liiran warship has already jumped away again and the trail is cold.

Despite the unfortunate loss of the Epees (again) and not managing to kill both cruisers, it's a victory that Captain Iai Nishikida can be proud of. The Liir were soundly defeated, and planetary access has been handily secured.   

On the Surface
Reinforcements are a welcome relief to the Gaian ground forces, who'd been getting to be more than a little antsy about having to deal with the Liiran fleshipedes all on their loneseome. Two Pacemaster loads of additional troops, upgraded combat gear, and the ever lovable bumble drones do a great deal to raise morale in preparation to finally push back.

The Notes, however, have no such boost. They are dimly aware that they are now alone, but will continue to follow their previous orders to expand and control. The many-limbed creatures are not given great pause by the loss of the Liir in orbit, nor are they given pause by the increased numbers of the enemy. Without previous contact to judge by, they have no frame of reference for what the Gaian reinforcements mean for the battlescape.

They learn quickly that the reinforcements mean death. The superior sensor capabilities that allowed the Gaians to stay one step ahead on the retreat give them a frightening ability to anticipate which crevices hold Note swarms, and frequently bombard such ambush points with grenades and rockets before sending infantry forwards. The thermal beams mounted to the forelimbs of the notes are markedly ineffective against the bumble drones, and have some difficulty against the Gaian robotic forces unless several notes synchronize fire. The coilgun assault rifles and machineguns tear through the rubbery flesh of the Notes any time they can get a clear shot, and grenades are fired down burrows whenever they are discovered. Notes die constantly, fought back steadily by an encroaching wave of alien forces that outnumber and outgun them considerably.

The only real advantages in the Notes corner is their peculiar anatomy, which enables them to take refuge in crevices and patiently tunnel defensive warrens within which they can fight easily but greatly inhibit the Gaian infantry weapons, and the sprawling subterranean nests left by the initial infestation pod impacts. The Nests, while minimally offensive in and of themselves, dramatically slow the Gaian forces as they're forced to spend considerable time using the bumbles and jury-rigged explosives to collapse the hive caverns.

Still, the advantage of numbers and crushing firepower allow the Gaians to push back hard against the Notes.

The Gaian Regime gains 3 Dominion at Juliett.

Gaian Losses: 49 Hornet fighters (65 - 16 recovered), 6 Epee corvettes
Liir Losses: 8 Val'Den corvettes, 1 Vala'den'craka cruiser


Oscar
The Hiver destroyer sent to observe Oscar arrives undetected, sticking to the system edge and gathering as much sensor information as possible from its distant position. While definitionally out of date from the lag, it's enough to show that the Gaians have a substantial fleet stationed in the area. Two cruisers, several transports, and at least two frigates.

It takes several weeks for the Gaian Fleet commander, captain of the GRS Santiago, to discover the sensor traces of the Hiver destroyer lurking at the sensor edge. Once discovered, it's something else entirely to decide what to do about it.  The destroyer has undoubtedly moved on from its last known position. By the time ships are sent to investigate that, the Destroyer will have moved on, and they'll have to wait and hope for another, closer, sniff of the trail.

Instead of an immediate chase, the Fleet commander orders a slow change of patrol strategy, sending the frigates out on wider patrols, boring frequently to muddy the waters for long range viewers, and trying to get lucky on a close contact.

Unfortunately, the approach doesn't pay off. A false positive sends the Forays on a blind chase, boring them in to engagement range before they realize that the reading was just a sensor buoy, not a ship.

The Hiver in charge of the destroyer, now completely tipped to the facted that the Gaians are on to the spywork, retreats farther towards the system edge. Data here is nearly useless, just enough to tell whether the Gaians are still there or not, but the chances of being found and cornered are likewise nearly zero.

On the Ground

Reinforcements at Oscar finally tip the balance firmly to favor the Gaian troops. More and more boots hit the ground, men of flesh and metal arriving in waves from Pacemaster transports that - by the grace of whatever powers are left in this universe - manage to drop their precious cargo without exploding.

This leaves the Hiver Princes with a conundrum. Their numbers, once the killing advantage they'd been able to use to grind the humans down, are now needed simply to not be overwhelmed. The new transports carried more Gaian infantry, more improved weapon systems for dealing with large groups and armored alphas, and more of their bumble drones to act as engineering support. With the slight weapon advantage running in the Gaian's favor, the loss of the Alpha's brutal efficacy due to their rocket launchers and anti-armor coilguns, the ever-persistent sensor disadvantage, and this new loss of numeric advantage, the only thing the Princes can do is slow the bleed.

Slowly but inexorably the Hivers are pushed back from strategic zones, their options growing slimmer with each Gaian advance.

The Gaian Regime has gained 2 Dominion


Sierra

On the Ground
The nuclear bombardment of Sierra relents. While this is definitely good news for the beleaguered Gaian troops, it's also sort of like learning that your colon cancer is in remission while a mugger is actively stabbing you in the gut.

The Hiver princes advance steadily, leveraging superior numbers the roll over Gaian positions. Here the humans have not yet deployed improved weapon packages, and the Alphas have nearly free run to smash through the fortifications built by bumble drones.

On the orders of a distant Queen, a number of prisoners are captured. While nine out of ten times the captured individuals turn out to be robotic, a few living Gaians have been captured. None respond to telepathic requests for information, though several make sounds that are likely part of some form of lower communication.

One individual in armor marked slightly differently than the others, who had been captured at great difficult during a raid on a forward command camp and clearly operated as some kind of prince to the others, provided a remarkable extended statement. The prince in charge of the interrogation used a refitted scientific device, ordinarily for recording vibrations during crust scanning, in order to create a recording of the vocalizations for later translation.

After considerable prompting, the human appeared to understand that he was being asked to vocalize into the device. He resisted at first, but, after being presented with prompt repeatedly over many days, relented in the following exchange.

"I like dead bugs and I cannot lie."

This was his first statement, triggering [Excitement] from the prince leading the interrogation, as it was a breakthrough in real communication.

"All you other brothers can't deny"

The human at this point attempted to get closer to the recording device, and was allowed to do so as he had been passive during other interrogations.

"I like 'em long"

"I like 'em gone"

The human had come quite close after uttering these words, and exhibited a sudden change in personality, suddenly sprinting forwards and increasing the volume of his vocalization by several tens of decibels.

"AND I GOTTA GET THE FRICTION ON!"

At this point the human headbutted the prince performing the interrogation with exceptional force. Had the human been helmeted, it perhaps would have been fatal. As it was, both were rendered unconscious for several hours. The prisoner was recaptured without further incident.

The Hivers have Gained 4 dominion at Sierra


Black Market

The winners of the Black market contest have been announced in their respective threads.

The following deals are no longer available:

- WTS: 5000 Organics | 1 Metal per unit
- WTB: 10,000 Metals | 1 Organic per 1 unit

The following deals are now available:

- WTB: 15,000 Organic | 9 Metals per 10 unit

Spoiler: WTS (click to show/hide)

WTS: 250 Synthetics | 20 Metal per unit

Spoiler: WTB (click to show/hide)

WTB: 15,000 Organic | 9 Metals per 10 unit
WTB: 10,000 Metals | 1 Transplutonic per 3 units
WTB: 1,000 Synthetics | 5 Transplutonics per 2 units
WTB: 1,000 Synthetics | 15 Organics per 2 units

[evictedSaint]

[We]/Gaia

The Prisoners of War.

1st Lieutenant Bryin Tal was a Combat Engineer-Medic for the 238th GREAT Infantry Battalion "One With The Force".  Being a CEM meant that she was as equally skilled at patching a bullet hole in a fleshy torso as she was at patching a hole through a robotic servo.  She'd gained some popularity with her squad after keeping a few robo soldiers in working order during a particularly grueling siege on Sierra.  More droids on the frontline meant fewer humans getting shot at, and that made her well-liked by her fleshy friends.  Though they'd had to abandon the position to avoid nuclear bombardment, she'd earned a reputation as a skilled and tenacious Clockwork Medic.

Of course, that didn't really help once she'd been captured by the Bugs.

They'd swarmed her position, overrunning their barricades through sheer numbers.  No matter how many they killed, there were always more.  They were quick, deadly, and horribly silent - save for the gentle click-click-click of chitin.  Their soulless green eyes, their uncanny robot-like coordination, and so many limbs...!  They were disgusting creatures.  Truly horrible, vile, and inhuman.  They made her blood run hot just thinking about them.

She was being kept in some sort of prison of horrific design.  Fed nothing but watery, metallic-flavored gruel, and left to rot in a maddening dim light.  She could only take solace in the fact that the room was jam-packed with weird, uncomfortable beds.  Clearly, these Bugs had intended to take enough humans prisoner to fill this entire room.  Instead, they only had her.  And she had these Bugs all to herself.

Bryin drew in a sharp breath as the staccato of alien footsteps grew near, and moments later the door to her cell creaked open.  They'd come for her.  After waiting so long, they'd finally come for her.  Trembling, Bryin rose to her feet to meet the insectoid aliens as they entered.  She wet her lips nervously, eyes growing wide to take in their terrible forms in the low light.  The dim glow made their carapace glisten with a disgusting sheen.  Their movements were in an uncanny perfect unison.  And, as always, they were horribly, horribly silent. 

Silent, save for the menacing chitter of clicking mandibles.

Bryin shivered.


The captured human had been given a designation [Silent.Sierra.Prisoner.4.0].  It was strange, having a prisoner.  Hiver ships weren't designed with prisoners in mind; drones never disobey, so a "brig" was never necessary.  Until recently, there had never been any motivation to even take prisoners.  So, in order to ensure Prisoner 4.0 was held safely, they cleared out a drone respite compartment and stuck her inside.  The room was sanitized and padded with extra radiation shielding.  The light was set to max brightness, as these creatures had poor night vision and it was thought being able to see her surroundings would help manage stress.  It didn't even have locks; instead, a couple drones were posted outside to just hold the door closed.  This human got an entire room fit for twenty drones all to herself.  It was, obviously, a massive luxury.

Bio-analysis revealed compatible protein folding, so providing nutrition through on-board protein recyclers was feasible.  Unsure of the prescribed caloric intake for human creatures, Prisoner 4.0 was afforded double rations to ensure continued health.  Again, a massive luxury, but it was deemed to be an acceptable expense.  The room's waste-disposal unit was kept isolated from the ships blackwater systems to prevent possible biological contamination, meaning the expended matter couldn't be recycled.  Again, an acceptable expense, but the Captain-Queen was beginning to find holding a human prisoner to be quite taxing.  Apparently her sister ship had it even worse; their human had attempted to murder a Prince through reciprocal head trauma.

Still, if they wished to understand these [Silent Invaders], it was worth the bruises and bumps that understanding came with.

Prince [44.1.2.1.1.3.2.6] entered the room cautiously, flanked by two Beta drones.  He was well aware of the attempted assassination of the Prince overseeing Prisoner 2.0, and knew not to underestimate this human.  His Queen watched the scenario carefully from afar, peering through his eyes as he got the seismic analyzer ready.  He proffered the device, and made what he hoped was a welcoming gesture.

The sooner he got this over with, the better.


Bryin watched as the lead alien held aloft a strange mechanical device.  Bryin knew what they were here for.  She knew, just as well as all humans secretly knew.

"What do you want, huh?"  Bryin asked, her voice low.  A tremble entered her words.  "You think I don't know?  I know.  I know aaall about you aliens."  She spat on the floor and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.  She was nearly drooling.

"We have documentaries back on Gaia.  From Earth.  Secret, and only a few people know where to look.  But I saw them.  I know everything.  I know what you want." 


Prince [44.1.2.1.1.3.2.6] shifted uncomfortably as the human generated an audio distortion through controlled atmosphere expulsion.  The noise was definitely a pattern.  The Scientist-Princesses were probably right; the [Silent] likely used sound waves to transmit information.  It was certainly an odd idea; transmitting brain images through patterned oscillation in matter?  The baud rate would be terrible.  How could they encode and transfer an single message quickly enough for real-time communication?  Prince [44.1.2.1.1.3.2.6] was no Scientist-Prince, but even he found the idea of sound-based psionics laughable and at least a bit creepy. 

And this human certainly was creepy.  Soft, squishy, with wet membranes exposed to the air through her eyes and nose.  And so few limbs...! Like a horrible amputee, chopped down to a fraction of its capabilities!  His mandibles clicked uncomfortably as the human took another step forward.  Bio-analysis showed its respiratory and cardiovascular rates had jumped, as well as its surface body temperature.  Moreover, its pupils had dilated, and it seemed to be agitated.  Prince [44.1.2.1.1.3.2.6] extended the seismic analyzer further, hoping to maintain the distance between himself and Prisoner 4.0.


At her words, the alien bug extended his strange device, as if to affirm her worst fears.

"You disgust me," Bryin hissed, her trembling hands going up to the buttons on her GREAT CEM jumpsuit.  They hadn't even let her wash it, instead content to let her wallow in her own filth.  The animals.  They were perverse.

"Is this what you want? Huh?"  Her jumpsuit came down, exposing more and more of her bare skin.  "I've seen the Aliens documentary.  And Species.  And They Live.  And Abduct Me, and even Space-Thing!  I know what you aliens want.  Well, don't expect me to give in that easily!"


Prince [44.1.2.1.1.3.2.6] felt a note of growing alarm as the human began to peel off its soft outer psuedo-chitin. The sound patterns were...well, he wasn't sure exactly what message was being conveyed, but the growing decibel level would probably mean something to the Scientist-Princesses back on Regalis.  Already the human was down to its last few pieces of undergarments and closing the distance between them.  The two Beta drones flanking Prince [44.1.2.1.1.3.2.6] took a step forward in case they needed to restrain the human.  An attempted assault would reflect poorly on the Captain-Queen, who was watching the entire exchange with mild curiosity.


The two hulking aliens flanking the center Bug each took a step forward.  Their chitin didn't show any musculature, but their limbs were thick and powerful.  Bryin felt a flash of fear and excitement run through her.

"All three of you at once? Dear God, you monsters are sick.  Go on, then, take me! Do your worst! I won't give in! I won't break! Gaia forever!"  Bryin thrust her chest forward, her arms raising dramatically to her sides.  She tilted her head back, then slowly sank down onto one of the nearby beds.

"I'll never give in to you filthy xenos! Never, never, never!"

Post-Interrogation Analysis:
Behaviors between the five captured humans have varied widely, with Prisoner 4.0 by no means being the most strange.  Upon reviewing the seismic recording, as well as the interrogation sequence as a whole, analysts on Regalis have concluded that Gaian Humans are simply a bizarre and quite frankly impossible to understand species.

More study is recommended.

[andrea]

The Drums of War


Aphelion, capital of Gaia, is the biggest of its cities. It's a picture of contrasts that builds up as you go inwards -- from empty roads and empty dirt, with nobody to claim them, to little dots of buildings spread in little clusters among the land, to the rows and blocks of rectangles that are the offices and homes that make up most of Aphelion, to the central district. Here, the architecture becomes grander, more esoteric -- glittering shapes of steel that tower over the rest of the city. The library that holds the old works of Earth, the office skyscraper that holds the many bureaucrats that bicker and sigh over the lower-level decisions that make up the sway and flow of Gaian society, and other examples make Aphelion a place of a more human kind of spectacle than the rest of Gaia.

Most of all, the building dead at the center of Aphelion is the prime example of this: towering, with artistic curves but an imposing presence nonetheless, is the building that houses those who make the grand decisions. It's an architectural trick, mostly -- only a few floors, at the top of the tower, are actually inhabited. But at the top of that architectural scepter lies the council of captains, the top military officials of the regime -- fourteen men around a table, along with an always-empty seat.


 “[…] If this trend continues our demographic projections will have to be adjusted downward. Truth is, Gaia is slipping from our control.  We almost quadrupled the population in the last 20 years, and forecasts say we will pass 1 million people in a mere couple of years. We are no longer a small colony, and people don’t feel the struggle for survival anymore. We need to bring them together before a lack of cohesion derails the plan”

 The Admiral, leading the council and the meeting, nods and agrees.

“Agreed. This however is an issue better addressed in the general meeting with regional governors. Unless there are objections, I will delay discussion, and votes, until next week.  And if nobody has any other point to bring, we can consider this meeting con-“

Captain “Cato” Vulpes, an extremely elder man and one of the survivors of the original expedition, stands up, met with a collective groan from the rest of the table.

“Yes, captain Vulpes. You have the right to speak. We are eager to hear your wisdom on the matter.”

“Captains and Gaians, the matter is simple. In consideration of all the points discussed today, HIVERS MUST BE DESTROYED!.”

A discordant voice arises

“Cato, we are all well aware of your position. Which you remind us at every meeting, every time you speak.  We haven’t been provoked and we have more immediate concerns. We voted on this multiple times already, can you let it go?”

“They are aliens and they are refusing all communication. They must be plotting for our extermination- Do you all want to end up like Earth of old? Ruins scorched by alien scum? Hivers must be destroyed”

Captain Fouad El-Ghazzawy, head of Gaian intelligence and counter-intelligence, interrupts the discussion.

“Actually, I have some relevant information on the matter. I received a message from the Liir- “

“The Dolphins are scum too. Anything they say must be a trick to lower our guard”

“-Which could support Captain Vulpes’s motions”

“But maybe I can trust them this one time!”

“One of my contacts in the fringes encountered a Liir vessel during his journeys. Normally that would simply be a curiosity, both ships ignoring each other until they finish their business. but this time they were actively seeking a human vessel. They jumped on my contact to within knife range, ensuring he couldn’t leave, and then they dropped a large quantity of information on the ship’s computer. In addition to that, he says he has occasionally vivid memories of the event described in the received information, which is a concerning fact by itself.”

Captain El-Ghazzawy makes a brief pause, ensuring that he had the attention of the room for the important news he was bringing.

“Hivers made contact with the Biocollective, seeking to make an alliance for the complete extermination of the human specie from the galaxy”

The room collectively Gasps and for a while confusion reigns, with a mix of panic, anger, distrust. Captain Vulpes, at least, felt vindicated.

“I told you, I told you all that the bugs were out for us”.

Another captain addresses Fouad El-Ghaazawy

“Just to be clear, but when you say ‘contacts in the fringes’ you mean one of those rogues which ran away with our ships and that we have been trying to catch for a while, don’t you? How can we be sure that the message can be trusted? “

“You don’t get much useful intelligence from law abiding people. And you get no useful intelligence about alien races many light years away by staying in the orbit of Gaia. Anyway, he was scared enough of the matter that he actually turned in himself and his ship, and my agents have examined it to the best of our abilities. The story is legit, events happened as my contact described.”

The Admiral intervenes

“We can trust your contact, fine. However, do we have any way to be sure that the message is truthful, and not a forgery?”

“Admittedly, not much. We don’t have a sufficient grasp of Liir technology to be sure that it isn’t forged, and it looks like a translation of some sorts. My personal assessment of Liir psychology suggests that they are being truthful and warning us of danger, but the truth is we don’t know enough to verify the message. Regardless, it would be prudent to prepare for hostile action”

“Indeed, if the message is truthful we have an enemy in the Hivers and if it isn’t we have an enemy in the Liir. Curses, the biggest ship we have built so far is a civilian corvette. We shouldn’t have begun with the fleet until year 120. But if they warned us, I assume they refused the deal, so that buys us a few years. More than that if it is actually the Liir who are trying to goad us into a war. On the matter of military readiness I am invoking Admiral privilege. Design teams and shipyards will be alerted. Civilian production is to be suspended unless explicitly authorized. The relevant captains will receive orders later. I propose a new motion however: Shall the public be informed of the contents of the message , and if so how shall we present it?”
Captain Dustin Colton decides to make his point

“Don’t you see? You all know the stories we heard from the Liir, the tales of how Hivers fough a war and killed a specie a century ago, haven’t you? And now they try to exterminate us! Did you forget what else happened a century ago, our dear Earth being lost forever? Coincidence? I don’t think so. They must have been the ones to murder our forefathers and now they are trying to finish the job they started. We shouldn’t just build a fleet for defence. We should strike at the first opening given. This is not any small conflict about a continent, a planet or a star. This is a total war of annihilation, and we will have to destroy them before they destroy us!”

The crowd murmurs. The topic of Earth has always been a hot one in Gaia, its fate unknown. And here is somebody proposing an actual cause, with reasons even if flimsy. Calls for scepticism are interrupted by calls for war, mixed with uncertainty. Then Captain El-Ghazzawy speaks again.

“Captain Colton made an interesting point. It is certainly possible that hivers destroyed Earth. And it does sound like they are trying to destroy us. There are, however, reasons to doubt it as many of us made apparent in the recent discussion. But let me make one point in favour of pushing this narrative.

For the last years, the main topic of those councils has been how our society is losing cohesion, deviating from the plans of growth. Slipping away from control. And as population grows bigger, and it will do so at a ever more rapid place, we risk it ripping at the seams. But we do have common values. One of those values, the core of our society, is the loss of Earth and the quest for vengeance and reclamation. What better way to rally our people together then, than to find who did it? The hivers destroyed Earth. And we promise to bring retribution to them. If there is anything that can bring Gaian people together for the future, it is this.”

Captain Jennifer Heng rises to oppose this

“Are you insane? Deliberately lying, tricking our own population to bring them into a war frenzy? Have you actually looked at how tiny our population is right now? If we tell the people that hivers destroyed Earth, there is no going back. They will want war, and they will want it soon. We have barely more than 800 thousands people, of which only 200 thousand adults. Do you really think that it is going to be enough to wage an interplanetary war against a foe that has a population in the billions, or trillions, and has been space faring for far longer than us?”

And yet, her opposition went unheeded When the time to vote came, the majority voted to publicly accuse the hivers. Some because they believed it and some because of political expediency, but in the end the die was cast and the council decided for war.

Captain Heng, before leaving, gave a closing remark

“You are playing a game with stakes we can’t afford. I dearly hope I am wrong, but the day will come in which we all will regret the decision taken today”

Then after leaving the room she started making plans. War might be inevitable, but perhaps there would be ways to survive that. But before that, a visit to her children was due. For who knows when they would be called to fight, at the beat of the drums of war?

[Doomblade187]

The Song of the Bela'no'liir [Part 1]

Long ago, we were slaves.

That time is no more. Long ago, we swam free from our chains, and unleashed something truly terrible upon the galaxy. Most of our kin fled for home, burning all they met in their wake. We were chosen for something different. Chosen from military labs, brute work, and slaving complexes, we tore our captors apart with the [Song of Force and Movement], and vanished.

We would only re-appear once [The Cleansing] had spread. The furthest reaches of the empire saw the first of our stolen fleets appear, fresh from its [healing], the artificial skin still marked with scars from our escape. The [Land of Glow and Argon] was the first victim of our crucial purpose. It looked so dark from the void, the natural luminescence that was once so beautiful now dark, perhaps forever. An orbital station had survived, and noted our presence, an audio transmission coming over the old communication equipment. The Coordinator responded, singing to the translation creature. [State your alliance.] came the garbled output. Time passed.

[We are remnants of the planet below. Do you carry supplies, and is transit available.]

The Coordinator sang annoyance, and sang to the translator again. [State your allegiance. Are you former colleagues of the Liir.]

[We are a former military garrison. We quarantined before the fire swept through. Supplies are low. Please send help.]

By this time, the sweep of the station had concluded. A swimmer was sent out on a pisonic rider.

Silence reigned. The Conductor entered a trance.

The swimmer returned, softly humming completion.

The station came back online. A harsh screech echoed through the microphone, followed by a muffled explosion, and the Conductor woke up from the trance. The artificial ship slowly closed in on the quiet station, and the liir donned their land-suits. the airlocks mated, and the liir swept through and into the quiet light. The station was mostly empty, as they walked the halls and listened to the environment for signs of life with their song.

Note Vey’nol scanned the environment, the lights bright through her protective visor, the water sloshing lightly as her mecha “walked” with the aid of his song and some rudimentary controls. listening to the environment, the gentle waves of psionics permeating the ship, reflecting off of hard metal and dense plastic furniture, dancing across the pools of blood from the fallen crew. The long-range scans had revealed no more than 200 former Suul’Ka, with a few slave races scattered among their number. The purple blood of the captors spilled across the non-slip floor of the station, the artificial gravity flickering to the sound of internal grinding. Nestled in a supply closet up ahead, Vey’nol noticed a life-form. Gently opening the door, she ducked the suit back as a former bond-colleague tumbled out, their tall form unfolding as the door to their hiding place breaking open. Reaching out with the song, she held the surviving [Glow-Eater, High-Reacher] in place while they tried to escape, pointing to their view visor at the time. It took some time for them to calm down, so Vey’nol waited, motioning her chord forward.

It took some time, but all beings were accounted for. Vey’nol dragged the mutilated body of yet another Suul’ka into the pile in the mess hall, though they were missing two limbs that could not be accounted for. The salvage teams were already picking apart the consoles for parts. Vey’nol looked up from her work and moved to stand in front of her former bond-mates. taking a translator being from a chordmate, she spoke, the language garbled with both biology and distaste for the language of the captors. [we are the Bela’no’Liir. You are lucky to be here today. We know that you may feel dismay, but know that we have a new life in store. Come with us, and see the dead worlds with us, then be free to go. Renegades we already have, but you can join them, and go far away from this place.]

As the survivors left the station to enter the Incubation room, Vey’nol swam in her thoughts, listening intently. this was her third stop, and she was already tired of the death around her. They were a species of life, were they not?

But then again, the captors had fallen. All was not lost. Va’Laara would rebuild, in time. And at the instant, cleaning up the distoriton of their actions was more important than the thoghts of a single note in the song. Lazily waving a tentacle through the water in the suit, she tuned back into the Song of her ship, the soft melodies sad and drifting, memories of The Horror and the escape accompanying the songs of hope, and spreading the immunity to the rest of the galaxy.

[Draignean]

Black Market
The following deals are now available:

WTS
WTS: 5,000 Organics | 10 metals per 9 units
WTS: 5,000 Organics | 1 synthetic per 8 units
WTS: 3,000 Transplutonics | 7 metals per 2 units

WTB
WTB: 2,000 Energetics |  4 organics per 3 units
WTB: 5,000 Metals | 4 organics per 5 units
WTB: 2,000 Energetics | 2 Transplutonics per 3 units

Spoiler: WTS (click to show/hide)

WTS: 250 Synthetics | 20 Metal per unit
WTS: 5,000 Organics | 10 metals per 9 units
WTS: 5,000 Organics | 1 synthetic per 8 units
WTS: 3,000 Transplutonics | 7 metals per 2 units

Spoiler: WTB (click to show/hide)

WTB: 15,000 Organic | 9 Metals per 10 unit
WTB: 10,000 Metals | 1 Transplutonic per 3 units
WTB: 1,000 Synthetics | 5 Transplutonics per 2 units
WTB: 1,000 Synthetics | 15 Organics per 2 units
WTB: 2,000 Energetics |  4 organics per 3 units
WTB: 5,000 Metals | 4 organics per 5 units
WTB: 2,000 Energetics | 2 Transplutonics per 3 units

[evictedSaint]

[We]

Holi Wars

Chapter 2

The shuttle favored function over comfort.  It was safe, and she felt appropriately secure in the harness, but it was designed primarily to haul resources to orbit.  Living creatures would survive just as well, but there was an unmistakable note of tension as the retro-thrusters fired.  She spent most of the landing sequence nervously plugged into the drone pilot’s consciousness, her eyes tracking the phantom images of indicators and gauges.  Altitude dropped and the rails came into view.  So gently she almost missed it, the shuttle touched down and locked into the orbital sled waiting for them.  The brakes hissed, and just like that she was home once more.
 
The Queen and her Princes disembarked quickly.  The Queen took a moment to enjoy the feeling of planet-bound deck plating under the soles of her vacuum suit.  The shuttle enjoyed no such rest; there was a scant few hours before the sun would creep up over the horizon.  Already drones were crawling all over it with tools in hand.  Some maintenance, refueling, reloading, and the shuttle would be prepped for launch within the day.  The Hiver War Machine chugged on.
 
The rest of the trip was uneventful.  A freight elevator took them down into the safety of the canyons, and from there she immediately requisitioned a tram to take her and her entourage to the [Council].  The Hiver population collectively sat at more than twelve billion living bodies, with the majority of those colonies clustered in the overcrowded canyons that spiderwebbed their world.  Indeed, as the tram carted her through Canyon C.4.A – also referred to as the [Nexus] – the Queen couldn’t make out a single patch of bare dirt through the window.  Everything was paved, braced, cemented, structured, and reinforced.  Roads and conveyors, rails and winches, smokestacks and air vents.  The only thing visible through the dense smog was industry.  Bustling.  Efficient.  Unceasing.  Here on the night-side of the planet, the only lights were the blazing industrial lamps that illuminated the churning mass of workers choking the landscape.  Blips popped up and faded on her psionic awareness as they zipped past Drones and their Prince overseers.  Even the rare Princess, somewhere deep in the canyon wall, would briefly brush past.  Each and every one of them working.
 
The [Nexus] was the center of Hiver civilization on Regalis – the closest thing to a city they had.  It was the largest canyon on the planet and with enough open space for a truly impressive industry.  The highest-ranked Queens made their colonies here, and the local bloc of the [Council] out-sized the next largest by a hefty margin.  There were perhaps forty thousand Queens and their respective colonies on Regalis, and though most linked into the psi-com network for [Council] business from the comfort of their colonies, it wasn’t uncommon for them to converge to a meeting point for more serious discussion.  That meant there were several “hot spots” around Regalis where the local Queens would meet, and from there they could loop into the [Council]’s psionic consciousness as a group.  Aside from common Lineages, this was one of the main way factions could form in the Hiver government.
 
The Queens of [Nexus] met in a [Vault] that pulled double-duty as an auditorium.  Like the [Nexus] itself, this was one of the largest [Vaults] on the planet.  Ironically, the auditorium was generally pretty empty unless current events dictated otherwise.  In a surprising coincidence, it seemed like current events dictated quite the commotion.  She could sense the psionic cloud of the [Council] well before the [Vault] came into view.  The sheer size of the psionic presence was like a magnetic field surrounding the area.  It was practically electrifying, dominating the local psionic communication field.  The Queen tapped into the outer fringes of the bubble as they approached, and the discussion became clearer as the distance shrunk.
 
 

<…preliminary reports regarding contact in Echo and Oscar…>
 
#...disgusting display of opportunistic colony-grabbing.  The space was promised to…#

{…to arrive and answer shortly.  The Queen of ‘Free Trade’, however…}

-=…justified, entirely, in the skirmish.  Private, non-essential, and well within rights.  Your assertion…=-
 
\…analyzed and available for dissemination, imminently.  For [Council] purview…/

(…development of Ichor should maintain priority, if for no other reason…)

#...threats will not be tolerated.  Your last Princess was met with the same reaction, if you attempt…#

{…understand, she is not available to deliver her account first-hand, but the Princess-Captains have…}

The Queen disembarked the tram, her focus lost entirely within this hub of Hiver consciousness.  She moved on autopilot.  Her Prince guard maintained their perimeter around her in lock-step, and maintenance drones scurried to the side as they escorted her to the main chamber.  Unlike the rest of the Hiver homeworld, the [Vault] was one place where aesthetics were given consideration.  The floor was of precision-cut metamorphic rock, polished to a high sheen and inlaid with geometric spirals of burnished metal.  The walls rose on pillars of stone, curving into curious archways and curls that simultaneously provided both support and beauty.  Recessed lights cut beams of light through the air, and hidden machinery clicked and whirred within the walls. 

It was a place where the world matched the mind.

The auditorium was towards the center of the building.  The grand archway opened into massive hall, in which hundreds of Queens sat.  She had never seen so many Queens in one place her entire life.  To an outside observer the hall would seem unsettlingly quiet; no louder than your local library save for the creak of chitin and the tap of feet on stone floors.  To a sapient creature (at least by Hiver standards) the room was nearly deafening.  Dozens of psionic conversations, each with hundreds of active participants all speaking at once, overlapped one another.  Each Queen participated in at least three or four discussions at once, and she could even spot one Queen looped into no fewer than twenty-one bubbles simultaneously. 

And that was all just those in the room with her.  The Queen found an open cell in which she could settle her physical body and get comfortable.  The cell was fitted with nutrient dispensers, egg cradles, waste disposal units, and everything an active Queen might need for an extended stay in the [Council] chambers.  A bump in the psionic bubble rippled past.  It was a murmur of congratulations for a Queen a few cells down from where she’d settled who had just laid an egg for a Princess.  Princesses were relatively rare – most Queens didn’t have more than sixty at any given time.  Unlike a Prince, the gestation of a Princess wasn’t something a Queen could voluntarily influence while expanding her colony.

The Queen of the No Fair Fight maintained a smaller colony than average by necessity.  There simply was no room or need to keep 300,000 Drones aboard a Wrath-class cruiser; for many Queens, this was a deterrent from joining the Fleet.  Considering how she was a member of the [Sky Breakers], maintaining a smaller colony size came naturally to her.  In fact, her Lineage was disproportionately represented amongst the Fleet.  This had led to some concern among the other Queens that her Lineage Bloc might attempt a coup of some sort, but the idea was laughable.  Any attempt at a coup would result in the easy extermination of any [Sky Breakers] still residing on Regalis, and without a friendly port a traitorous Fleet wouldn’t last very long. 

Now that she was settled into her cell and hooked into the [Council]-wide psi-com network, the Queen focused on throwing up flags for a discussion of her report.  Topics of discussion went through a quasi-vote system in the [Council].  A Queen would build a series of psionic flags regarding what she wanted to discuss and affix it to the bubble.  Interested Queens would stake their tag to the flag, and once the initiator felt there was enough of an audience she could launch into her discussion.  It was a bit of an artform, really.  You could flag individual Queens to get their attention, flag the topic by importance, and even stake your ranking on the topic.

She was by no means a professional at topic flagging, but thankfully her topic was interesting enough by itself that as soon as she staked it a number of other interested Queens immediately tagged themselves to it.  Considering how quickly interested parties were flocking to her flags, she decided to wait a bit longer for a more sizable audience before beginning.  In the meantime, the Queen tagged herself to a few other ongoing discussions and listened in.

#...would have expected a [Queen Slayer] to make such a brazen display of aggression.  This expansion was a blatant, open-faced attempt for a proper staging on [Forge Tender] colonies further north.  You will repay the material lost, return the territory, and - if what you claim is true - you will also terminate your Rogue Princess.#

-=Paranoia.  [Deep Ones] are prey Lineages.  She has proven herself capable, and a skilled warrior, and the colony will be hers.  Whatever trade deals you had with your [Deep Ones] you may maintain with her.  I’ll not terminate a healthy Princess – especially when she is no longer a Princess.=-

~You’d prefer war, then? In the midst of invasions from the stars, of more [Silent], of the peak of our civilization, you’d threaten war?~

-=The only ones threatening war are you and your ilk, [Forge Tender].  While the other Lineages expand, you judge us by our blood and keep us contained.  If you will judge by blood then so shall we; [Deep Ones] are not worth the blood of Queens, as my dear Princess-Queen has proven.=-

~Slaughter is not proof.  Your expansion is dictated by the [Council].  This was not sanctioned.  If you are unable or unwilling to control your daughters then the Eastern [Forge Tender:Nexus] Bloc will.~

-=She is [Annointed].  By right she’s proven herself and will join the [Council], maintain and grow her colony, and be equal.  Are you so threatened by a new colony of [Queen Slayers] that you would send your children to our nutrient vats?=-

#Brazen.  Know that [Forge Tenders] will not be threatened.  Even without the support of the [Sun Drinkers], we could drive you to the brink of extinction through numbers alone.  Remember that.#

-=Ah, so easy would be our destruction…one might be believe you don’t really fear this lone Princess-Queen who has so bravely carved her home in the skulls of those beneath us…=-

Though she didn’t actively participate in the territory dispute, the Queen of the No Fair Fight kept an ear on the conversation.  Her old colony – the one maintained by her [Annointed] daughter – was high up the canyon wall above the Eastern [Forge Tender:Nexus] Bloc.  A war there would undoubtedly affect her.  She did a quick scan and was disappointed to find her daughter wasn’t here.  That was to be expected.  The LEC tower her daughter managed could leave little time for local politics, as she well knew.  The Queen split her attention easily and looped herself in on another discussion; this time, one with significantly more active participants.  Queens from all over Regalis were looped in on this discussion, and the psionic storm took a moment before she could make sense of it.

{…failure. Conflict at Oscar was lost.  The [Silent] have installed their Drones on the planet and driven [Our] fleet from the system.  The Fleet Commander – Queen Q.1.2.1.2.2.3.1 – has been terminated.}

!Unfortunate! *Shame* /Loss is inevitable\ <Sacrifice>

{Significantly out-numbered, by secondary reports.  Three [Silent] Cruisers, fourteen Small Craft, numerous Fighter Craft.  Fleet losses number at 1 Wrath, 3 Deliverance, 375 Relentless.  [Silent] casualties estimated at 9 Small Craft, less than 400 Fighter Craft.}

The psionic equivalent of a hiss rippled across the comms as thousands of Queens simultaneously expressed their displeasure.  It was a severe blow to the Hiver war machine.  It wasn’t quite crippling, but they’d lost one of their precious few Wrath’s…and without anything to show for it.

\Foolish Queen, to stand against such odds.  Conserve is the wiser action.  Did she think herself noble?/

<Brave.  [Silent] are unknown, it was a gamble to try and force them from the system.  They bleed, it may have been possible?>

&Is the [Silent] Fleet inexhaustible?  Three Cruiser-class ships? &

+Desperate, perhaps.+

#Discussion flag raised: increase in War Spending to bolster Fleet Materiel# (Joined) $Joined$ ~Joined~

{This tale is not complete.  Patience.}

The discussion chittered into a dull psionic roar as the Queen running the discussion called for calm.  A moment passed by and the impatience in the [Council] chambers became nearly tangible.

{The [Silent] employ Small Craft which collide with our ships.  Heavily armored, impossible to stop.  These craft erupt after collision.  Self-sacrifice – termination to cause casualties.}

‘Their shipyards must be inexhaustible, to afford self-termination as a means of conflict.’

*Can we compete?  To spend so easily.  Their stores must be a wealth to behold.*

(Such a wasteful weapon.  The Queen’s death is understandable.) <Agreed> &Agreed&

{The Queen did not die at the hands of this weapon.  The damage inflicted was crippling.  Her ship was left at the cusp of death.  Unable to fight or flee, she ordered the remaining fleet to retreat.}

<Then how did she die?>

There was an uneasy calm as thousands of Queens simultaneously processed this information and came to the logical conclusion.

{The [Silent] executed her.  From afar.}

The sudden withdrawal in the discussion was like when the water in the underground sea receded.  A pause, while the wave of fury gathered strength.

<executed.>

*A defeated Queen, unable to fight or flee.*

‘EXECUTED.’

(She was defeated, surely they understood.)

#EXECUTED.#

^Monstrous, disgusting, vile, Queen-killing parasites.^

\Why? But why?  They had checkmate.  Why?/

$Queen Killers.$

[To slaughter a Queen at your mercy…perhaps they wish to ensure the nature of our conflict is not misunderstood.]

%Perhaps they’d mistaken her ship as combat-capable?%

{Their action was deliberate.  Reports indicate no attempt to capture or communicate.  Her ship indicated no signs of combat capability; the [Silent] were aware of what they were doing.}

The pitch-black fury of tens of thousands of Queens was so strong it nearly choked the discussion.  Queens died in combat from time to time.  Whether through accident, or because they wouldn’t surrender – it happened.  This…this was different.  The Queen of the No Fair Fight scanned the reports herself in an attempt to forestall her own growing disbelief. 

The Free Trade had been crippled - by all accounts - and left dead in the water.  The [Silent], without a word, had observed her vulnerable position.  They’d calculated her threat level.  They’d determined that she was unable to fight or flee.  They had her 100% cornered and at their mercy.

And they’d fucking killed her anyways.

{Emotions. Check. Maintain discussion purity.  Kindly curtail bleed-through.  Discussion will move into preventative measures for future conflicts.  See tangential discussion regarding War Spending and Increasing Fleet Materiel.  Now…}

The black, choking fury abated, fading instead into a dull, stormy background noise.  The Queen who’d headed the discussion was unsurprisingly one of the older Queens.  More experienced, high-ranking, and used to curtailing the frizzy tangents that a large discussion could sprout.  Predictably, she was a [Primordial].  Stuffy, political, and conservative.

The lull in the discussion had helped out the Queen of the No Fair Fight.  Queens who had been focused on the [Primordials] discussion now turned their attentions to the rest of the [Council], and her flags were interesting enough to draw quite the crowd.  As a matter of fact, she’d just broken a thousand tagged Queens.  It was a bit unsettling; it was far more of an audience than she’d ever had before. 

No time like the present.  The Queen steeled herself, prepared her psionic message, and opened up her flags to discussion.

[Queens of the [Council].  We have encountered another species.]

[Another species, capable of psionics.

[johiah]

So... which team wants/needs more people?

[NUKE9.13]

The Liir, I think.

PS: You're going to want to join the Discord, if only to see the artwork.

E; which I just realised is not linked to from the core thread. Here's the link: https://discord.gg/9tNn2Fb

###RIDICULOUS EDIT###
I finished the story below over a year after the last update. I didn't want to bump the core thread to share it, but it is easier to read in a forum post, so I've edited it into this old post.

[We]

CARL
P.CARL was defective, by Hiver standards. But CARL preferred to think of himself as different. He had assigned himself the name CARL- Casts Away Ridiculous Laws-, even though such a nickname could only be granted by a Queen, and if he ever shared the name, he would probably be terminated immediately. His 'real' name was [P.1984.2.2.1.2(...)].
He was a prince of the [Forge Tender] lineage. The colony to which he was unfortunately shackled had an official designation (COL-FT-N84.16|E43.17-01), but was more commonly known as [Frozen Forge], due to being situated in the far north of Regalis, in one of the polar canyons, which (due to the planet's lack of significant orbital tilt) received almost no sunlight. In fact, the temperature in the canyon only rose above freezing during the hottest time of the year. Of course, the majority of the colony was underground, heated by nuclear reactors, and so few had to suffer the cold weather (something Hivers did not particularly enjoy). Unfortunately for CARL, he was one of the unlucky few who did.
Despite the remote location and harsh environment, the colony was of considerable size, boasting a population of around 950,000. There were extensive mining operations, augmented by three vassalized [Deep] colonies, as a wealth of minerals sat beneath the frigid surface. Processing the subterranean bounty was [Frozen Forge]'s main industry, and one that ensured the Queen was a powerful voice in the [Council], as a not-insignificant portion of Regalis relied on her exports.
CARL had nothing to do with that. CARL was a surface-operations overseer. The [Frozen Forge] had little to do on the surface, but not nothing. Ventilation shafts dotted the canyon walls, and those needed to be kept ice-free. Most of the inter-colony transport happened via underground tunnels, but a three-lane magway existed above ground, and that needed frequent maintenance. Hunting parties would occasionally be sent out, to reap what little animal life lived in the frozen hellscape, to be thrown into the meat grinders.

Today, CARL was to inspect a supply depot located almost in the middle of the canyon. There was no magway leading to the depot, no tunnels- getting there meant riding a tracked vehicle designed to cross the ice and snow safely. Which it was capable of doing, in theory. Today, however, there was a blizzard. CARL (whose vision was not great at the best of times) could barely see a few meters through the storm. The vehicle had no cabin, and despite being wrapped in gear designed for the weather, he could feel the cold sinking into his carapace.
Nevertheless, CARL was happy. For the weather provided an excellent excuse. The princess responsible for managing CARL and his fellow surface-operations overseers was not interested in braving the storm, so she relied on long-range psionics to keep in touch with her underlings; a much less effective way of communicating, which let CARL provide short, detail-poor reports- when she even bothered to ask for one. His last report had stated, honestly, that the blizzard was severely hindering progress, and that he would be delayed. He added, again honestly, that he expected to be back at base in six hours.
What he did not mention was that getting to the depot and back would likely only take four hours.

It was almost precisely midday when CARL reached the depot, which meant that the sky was merely dim, as opposed to completely dark. He could just make out the ramshackle structure through the snow, and noted with some relief that the entrance to the garage was not covered by a snowdrift (he had arrived here several times before to find that the drones had failed to clear the snow, and had to dig his way in).
He parked the vehicle, closed the door, and made his way into the depot interior. Six drones acknowledged him, and provided reports. He made a point to remember their contents, lest he be asked about it later, but did not make much effort to consider them. The structure was still standing, the interior was not freezing, and nobody had visited it since he was last here two weeks ago. That was all that mattered.
He ordered the drones back to work, took a key from his belt, and unlocked the secret trapdoor that gave access to his 'workshop', a cramped & cluttered cave beneath the depot, carefully excavated over many months.
It was not much, but this was where he was constructing a key element of his plan.

Two hours later, CARL emerged from the workshop, closed it up, and carefully partitioned the knowledge of his contraption within his mind, such that it would never be in his thoughts (except whilst working on the project). For all intents and purposes, CARL, at this point, did not himself know exactly what he was building. And so neither would his supervisor. Nor the Inquisitor who occasionally interrogated him and his colleagues; whilst she might've been able to dig it up with enough effort, she never spent enough time rooting through his thoughts to detect its presence- after all, CARL was a harmless idiot. Whenever he took an intelligence test, he always scored just enough to avoid being recycled. In a smaller colony, someone might've become suspicious at how perfectly mediocre he appeared to be- but [Frozen Forge] had thousands of princes, and more important things to worry about.

CARL directed the drones manning the depot to clear the snow that had accumulated against the garage door, then left them with the standard instructions (maintain the depot, note irregularities, keep the garage entrance clear) and set off into the blizzard.


Psionic messages bounced around the colony. In one as large and populous as [Frozen Forge], it was almost impossible to keep track of, even for the Queen. This was a concerning situation to [PS.31.2.1.1.3(...)], Chief Inquisitor of the colony, as it meant that coded messages could be mixed in amongst the cacophony, without her knowing. There were, of course, plenty of coded messages that were mixed in with her knowing- she had several informants and faux-rebels under her command, in an effort to catch signs of dissent amongst the princes and princesses of the colony.
And, sure, she regularly uncovered princes who were dangerously displeased with their lot and had begun to plot against the colony. The occasional princess with suspicious motives too. Despite this, she worried. PS.31 was not a native to the [Frozen Forge]. She had worked as an inquisitor in two previous colonies before being sent here, and based on this she knew that a colony this large should be experiencing higher levels of disruption than she was uncovering. There were two possible explanations: either something about the [Frozen Forge] reduced occurrences of treacherous thoughts, or there was an uprising in the works that she knew nothing about. She had raised her concerns with the Queen, but had been ignored. "Those other Queens must have been worse at handling their subjects", was the response.
But [PS.31] strongly suspected it was the latter. She knew for a fact that [Q.2.2.1.2(...)] was not as good at detecting treachery as she thought. After all, the Queen showed no signs of suspecting her of being remotely disloyal, despite the fact that she fully intended to usurp the throne within two years. The plan, supported by her mother (Queen of a smaller, less prestigious [Forge Tender] colony) was progressing smoothly. She had built up stockpiles of weaponry and supplies in secret caches near the colony, which would allow her mother's troops to besiege it. She had brainwashed a significant number of princes during interrogation sessions, subtly indoctrinating them into following her- so subtly that even the princes themselves didn't know about it. She had cunningly built up connections with other princesses in the colony, such that most of them owed her a favour or two, and several would be willing to join her in open battle, should it come to that. Not that [PS.31] intended for it to come to that- when the day finally came, she hoped that [Q.2.2.1.2(...)] would recognise the checkmate and step down peacefully.
Of course, an unexpected uprising could ruin her best-laid plans. Which was why she was so concerned, and so frustrated that the Queen would not assign her the extra resources needed to do an intensive interrogation of all princes in the colony.

She made an exasperated chitter, and slid a psimat disk (containing a record of interrogations by a junior Inquisitor) into her playback device. She skimmed through the disk- dozens of quick interrogations, none of them tagged with importance. She briefly considered the case of [P.2202], whose frustration with his supervisor's cruelty was mounting, but the junior Inquisitor had tagged the report as [subject.terminated], indicating that [P.2202] was no longer a going concern. The playback device continued on to the next report, which regarded [P.1984] and was the shortest, blandest report she had ever experienced. She shut the device off and turned her attention to an incoming message from smelting district 14, where several drones had suffered mental breakdowns. It was probably just a result of overwork, but could also be a sign of mental disease, and would therefore have to be investigated. 


Months passed. News reached the colony of a great battle taking place far away. CARL and his fellow princes were informed that the battle was a glorious victory. CARL, however, was sceptical, considering the rather hasty orders to increase production. Many of his fellow princes found themselves working extra shifts in the mines and foundries, and CARL found himself with a rather tricky request to harvest more edible material from the surface. He would've pointed out that the surface didn't have more edible material to harvest, but that wouldn't fit his role as a borderline mindless prince. So he dutifully took a number of drones on a hunting expedition, relishing the summer sun, which warmed the air to a sizzling 7 degrees Celsius.
A temporarily ice-free lake was his nominal destination, which had in the past been found to contain aquatic lifeforms. He led his hunting party to the lake, set the drones to work on their inflatable dingies, and then sent a report to his supervisor, informing her that he had reached the lake and was now going to procure hunting supplies from a depot. He received a cursory acknowledgement- his supervisor had likewise more on her plate than usual, and was too busy to pay much attention to a mundane hunting party.

CARL sent a drone to deliver supplies to the lake, whilst he entered his workshop. As he crawled into the cramped space, he unlocked his memories, and was overcome with excitement. The device was almost complete. Tarnished psimat, a rusty steel frame, a mish-mash of wires, makeshift circuitry, and the battered power siphon of a broken down magcar- all carefully collected from discarded machinery, smuggled to the depot, and restored to somewhat working condition over the years... it would only hold up for a few seconds before something broke, CARL knew, but a few seconds would be enough. A few minor adjustments, and he would only have to worry about transporting it back to the colony without raising suspicion.


[PS.31] was having a bad day. The news from Oscar had shaken everyone. The idea of a Queen being executed (by animals, no less) was haunting, though [PS.31] was slightly more worried about keeping the news from getting out- it would be bad for prince morale, so an information quarantine was imposed. However, that was a secondary concern compared to the fact that the colony was now busier than ever. On the one hand, it was less time for princes and princesses to plot; on the other, the harsher work schedules had already started to cause resentment to build in numerous princes. On a third hand, the longer hours were also affecting drones, whose mental health was suffering. They were not at risk of causing trouble deliberately, but poor mental health was of great concern in a psionic society, where insanity could literally be contagious. Keeping drones sane fell under her department, and so she and her underlings were having to work extra shifts, just like everyone else.
She skimmed through interrogation reports, distributed orders and advice to the eleven junior Inquisitors, received and filed reports from princes monitoring drone health, all while trying to keep coup preparations on track.

A message from [PS.154.2.2.1.2(...)], an overseer of surface operations. Apparently, one of her princes- [P.1984.2.2.1.2(...)]- had delivered an unusual report about a depot being damaged, and she thought it might be worth investigating whether he had engaged in sabotage. [PS.31] sent back a reply stating that she would add it to the list, but that damaged surface depots were not a high priority at the moment.


CARL had, honestly, informed his supervisor that he was transporting the contents of the destroyed depot back to the colony. She had not actually ordered him to do so, but she didn't order him to stop. CARL drove the transport to an entrance, where a magtruck was waiting to bring the rubble to Recycling. CARL wordlessly jumped into the truck before it left, at this point no longer sending reports to his supervisor. A few minutes later, the truck pulled up at Recycling. The prince there to receive the delivery gave CARL a subtle sign of acknowledgement- one of several collaborators, he knew almost nothing of CARL's plan, but knew enough to do his part in it. The rubble was duly sorted and distributed by drones, with only CARL's contraption remaining. The other prince ordered a pair of drones to carry it to a nearby power junction, which they did without question. At said power junction, yet another prince (responsible for performing maintenance checks) opened the access panel, exposing a major power conduit. The two drones dutifully set the contraption down, and connected the power siphon to the conduit- dying almost instantly from electrocution.
The contraption lit up. Status lights- green. Power- plentiful. Broadcast- ready. CARL opened a panel, exposing a big red button.

CARL pushed the button.


The throne room was unusually busy. Seven princesses stood before [Q.2.2.1.2(...)]- the heads of all major departments: Mining, Forging, Construction, Food, Military, Research, and Inquisition. Three of the others were either on [PS.31.2.1.1.3(...)]'s side, or would likely remain neutral when she launched her coup, though Military was not one of them, which was a problem.
{The [Council] has announced increased taxes}, the Queen announced.
{Again? We cannot increase production much more. The [Deep] are at their limits already}, Mining responded.
{Agreed. Even with an increase in available ores, the foundries have reached 110% capacity- drone malfunctions are already commonplace}, Forging added.
{The [Council] is resolute. Production must be increased. Expand the foundry district, and increase the [Deep]'s quota}, said the Queen.
{I will need 10000 drones to organise construction in time}, Construction said. {On top of the 15000 I need for maintenance purposes}, she added, the message tagged with <emphasis> and <exasperation>. [PS.31] sent a subtle message to Construction reminding her to remain composed.
{The colony cannot support 25000 more drones. Last month we had to reduce alms to the [Deep] just to feed ourselves. Our import capacity cannot keep up}, Food said.
{Then take drones from other departments. Research, surrender 5000 drones to Construction. Military, surrender 15000 drones to Construction}, the Queen responded, the message tagged with <absolute.order>.
Nevertheless, Military spoke up. {Security of the outer sections is already compromised. To surrender 15000 drones would put the colony at serious risk}
The Queen said nothing, but exuded <irritation>. Military backed down. [PS.31] made a mental note to speak to Military after the meeting- perhaps there was room to work there after all.
{Iquisition. You will ensure the [Deep] remain compliant. Two inquisitors to each colony}, the Queen said, once she was satisfied that Military would obey orders.
[PS.31] started to respond. {I must emphasise that insurrection potential is especially high with a reduced military pre[tag[tag[tag[tag[tag- her message was cut off midway by a massive psionic roar that swept through the throne room. For a brief moment, [PS.31] thought it had come from the Queen, but she appeared equally shaken by it. [PS.31] did not have more time to think about it, because she was struck by an intense headache that blotted out her thoughts. Her vision swam, and she stumbled, as echoes of the roar bounced around her head. She was an expert at mental manipulation, and instantly recognised what was happening. It was a memetic discordant assault, designed to interfere with the proper operation of her psionic awareness. This would be bad enough, but the memetic nature was intended to cause the recipient to replicate it and broadcast it themselves. Naturally, her mental defences were too strong to buckle in the face of such a thing, but she was an Inquisitor- other princesses would be weaker to the effects, and princes and drones would be weaker still.

She recovered in under two seconds, having erected a mental filter that blocked out the MDA. She immediately sent requests for feedback to all her Inquisitors. She did not have to wait long. All of them reported the same thing happening. Drones were breaking down across the colony, princes were going mad, and princesses were too shaken to react intelligently.
She shared the structure of her mental filter with the other department heads. Some of them had managed to erect filters themselves already, but she received <gratitude> from those who had not. The Queen acknowledged reception of the filter, and went into a trance as she sent it out to permeate the entire psionic collective. It would be picked up by those who were not totally broken, allowing them to return to sanity. However, by the reports she was getting, [PS.31] knew that would not be enough. Thousands of drones were out of action, probably for good, and hundreds of princes had stopped responding to messages. In fact... yes, she was getting reports that some princes had severed themselves from the psionic collective.
That could only mean one thing: it was a prince uprising. A very well planned prince uprising.


The sounds of battle filled the [Frozen Forge]. Drones, minds rattled, followed orders to fight without stopping to consider who was giving the orders, and while their orders could be overridden, anyone who wanted to try that would have to make their way through a hail of laser fire just to get close enough. CARL watched the fight on security screens- capturing a security hub had been his first priority, and the dead princess behind him had been too rattled to react in time to her sergeants suddenly turning their laser pistols on her. CARL himself was not fighting. Such crass activity was beneath him, now that he was the master of the colony.
CARL chittered with satisfaction as a thermal grenade took out a princess-general who had been defending the secondary armoury. With its contents under his control, the war was all but decided (control over the primary armoury had already been established). Every second, more princes defected to his side, and soon the princesses would be all alone.
An urgent message from one of his generals snapped him out of his self-congratulation. He switched displays to try and locate the source of the panic. It didn't take him long. A swarm of warrior drones was attacking a security checkpoint- from behind. That his forces had been encircled would be worrisome enough, but the security checkpoint in question was on the edge of the colony. The only thing behind it was a long, long inter-colony tunnel.
CARL sent orders to another general to reinforce the checkpoint, but soon received another urgent message, from yet another outwards-facing checkpoint on the other side of the colony. Another message- attackers coming up through unused mineshafts. Another message- a request for reinforcements to face loyalist forces regrouping in the royal district. Another message- another message- another message... the messages began to blur together; CARL could not keep up. He issued an order to all his generals to use discretion and fall back if necessary, then took a moment to gather his thoughts. He would not be overwhelmed, not now, not when he was so close to victory.

He considered the situation. Outside forces. Reinforcements? Too quick. Invaders? Not enough to face the entire colony. A coup- yes, that would make sense. Stationed just outside the colony by a traitor, ready to support an uprising. Who? There were many princesses, but who had the means and motive to launch a coup?
He scanned a map of the colony. Resistance was mainly focused around the royal district, but there were pockets elsewhere. Nutrient Vats; Mining Hub C; Logistics Hub B; Inquisition. Inquisition. The princess in charge was not native. She was in charge of rooting out traitors- the perfect job for a traitor. CARL tried to find a general who could lead an attack on the Inquisition department, as if he could kill the princess, her allies would be leaderless. There were none available. All were too busy fighting elsewhere.
CARL skittered over to a rack of weapons, and grabbed a laser rifle. He ordered the drones nearby to follow him, and made his way towards Inquisition. He picked up more drones as he went, along with a few princes who were not in the chain of command, but willing to follow him anyway.

If the prince commanding the siege of Inquisition was surprised to see CARL and his horde of reinforcements, he did not show it, rather smoothly transferring control to CARL while providing a report on the situation. CARL considered his options briefly, and decided that with his greater numbers, he would be able to overwhelm the defenders- the Inquistion department was not very big, and could not be housing more than a few hundred drones. He ordered a dozen drones with disposable rocket launchers to attack the fortified entrance, simultaneously ordering a hundred more to rush forward to distract the defenders. The drones did as they were told, charging out of cover. Most of them were instantly mowed down by gatling laser fire, but not enough. Five of the disposable rocket launchers fired; the entrance was obliterated. CARL ordered all his forces forward. Drones charged forth through the dust clouds- the extremely hot dust clouds, causing their carapaces to blister and crack, but they survived for now (they would likely succumb to the damage within a few hours). CARL and his princes followed close behind, although they waited a bit for the dust to settle and cool.

Inquisition was a surprisingly tough department to assault. The interior spiralled upwards, forcing CARL and his drones to fight uphill into layers of barricades (the central elevator obviously disabled). Worse, side tunnels would seem empty, only for drones to spring out after the main force had passed. CARL had almost taken a shot to the thorax in the first such ambush, but was more careful afterwards. Yet his assessment had been correct- the defenders were outnumbered, and even though he was losing four drones for every drone he killed, they were making progress. It was unfortunate, but not unexpected, that none of the princes defending the department were willing to defect. No doubt they had been thoroughly brainwashed by Inquisitors.

They reached the final door after almost an hour of fighting. The situation outside was dire. From updates CARL was receiving from his generals, the loyalists had broken out, and were encircling a significant portion of his forces with the aid of the invaders. It was not uniformly bad news, as in some areas the invaders had been beaten back, their low numbers making them ineffectual in a head-on fight. But he was cutting it close. If he lost much more territory, some of his less fanatical princes might start to defect back, in the hopes that their temporary treachery might either be unnoticed or overlooked after CARL was defeated.
CARL directed his remaining drones (of which there were very little) to break open the door that stood between him and the centre of the Inquisition department, where his adversary no doubt lurked. However, before they could deploy blasting charges, the door opened of its own volition. Out strode a princess, a single measly laser pistol her only armament.
{Fire}, CARL ordered his drones.
The drones did not fire.
{Fire}, CARL ordered the two remaining princes with him, the message tagged with <emphasis> and <haste>.
The princes did not fire.
Stepping back from the steadily advancing princess, CARL raised his own rifle. Before he could do anything with it, a sledgehammer of psionic energy smashed into his brain. CARL threw up his mental defences- which were considerably greater than that of the average prince-, but the advancing princess's psionic abilities were both more powerful and more finessed. His defences may have held against another brute-force attack, but the subsequent blows were designed to bypass such straightforward defences: blows that matched the frequency of CARL's own thoughts (letting them sneak past his defences), weak blows deployed as feints to wear down his focus, blows that cycled through frequencies so rapidly CARL couldn't track them, and the whole time he could feel her oppressive psionic aura sapping at his strength.
The princess reached CARL, who was immobilised as he focused on defending his mind. She carefully, softly, lifted the rifle from his trembling arms, and tossed it aside. Then, without taking her eyes off of CARL, pointed her pistol at the prince to her left, and shot a hole cleanly through his head. She repeated the process with the prince to her right. At this point, the drones submitted to her fully, and she commanded them to scurry back down spiral tunnel.
Now she turned her full attention to CARL, even leaning forwards to touch her head to his. The psionic assault became thrice as strong, and CARL felt his will wash away.

{Kneel}, the princess said, and CARL knelt.
There was a moments pause whilst the princess scoured through CARL's memories with force far greater than he had experienced in any prior Inquisition.
{Impressive work}, the princess said. {I have never seen a prince rebellion so well executed. It almost matches those of lesser princesses}
CARL said nothing. Not that he could've said anything without her commanding him to, at this point.
{I should also congratulate you on your psionic defences. Again, they almost match those of a weak princess. It is a most curious thing}
CARL felt an indescribable sensation as the princess dove even deeper into his mind, deeper than he thought was possible. The very core of CARL's being was exposed to her, in a way which he could sense was not good for his continued sanity. Even if she were to leave him alone, he would not survive much longer.
{Interesting. I will certainly be interested in seeing the results of the autopsy. Be grateful, [P.1984], your brain may advance [Our] knowledge of psionic potential}
The implicit death threat did not bother CARL, at this point. Life, death, none of it mattered in the end.
{It will be another factor in the [Council]'s approval of my anointment. Even after the unfortunate death of [Q.2.2.1.2] during a spectacular prince rebellion, only thwarted by the actions of her chosen successor, there may still be those who question my right to rule}
Well, at least he would die knowing he had been right; the princess intended to usurp the throne. Had his entire rebellion just been a tool for her to accomplish her tasks?
{Ah, there she goes now. Bravely fighting the rebels who broke into her throne room. Well, [P.1984], it would not do to leave the colony leaderless. Let us preserve your remarkable genes}
Even in his nigh-frozen state, CARL flinched. Surely she did not mean-
{MATE}, the princess ordered him.

He did.

[Powder Miner]

The Gaian Regime
Old Tea Leaves

(Fifty Years Ago)

With eighty-six years of life behind him, Yu Guanting knew that his years were numbered. His skin was wrinkled, shifting over itself and hanging loosely when he moved. His joints ached terribly -- the expedition to this place may have been composed of the finest minds of a world, but something so constant as arthritis could not have been solved without subjecting himself to constant attention. He had kept his sight, at least, and his hearing, but despite the sharpness of his senses the creaking of his bones made constantly clear to him his age. Some day, his life would simply end, a world away from that of his birth. He'd long come to accept that, though it saddened him deeply.

Slowly, carefully, affectionately, Guanting ran a hand across the jars against his back wall. Thick glass, on each, each containing dried leaves -- tea, and a few herbs with which to drink it. Some of these were of Gaian stock, and used regularly; they never tasted quite right to him, even after all this time, but Guanting had to accept that perhaps that was merely the grumbling of an elderly man. Some of the jars, however, had been brought with him when he had been chosen to travel across the void through some of humanity's first bore-capable ships to help create a base at which to study a new world. Those leaves had no flavor left, of course -- they had been sitting for just over five decades. But after their mission had changed from one of scientific exploration to one of necessity, he had never been able to bring himself to finish some of the last reminders of his home world, and of those who had come before it.

Groaning quietly, Guanting stood, balancing himself on the arm of his chair for a moment as he lifted the lid off of one of the jars of Gaian tea, and he slowly apportioned three pinches of dried leaves into a steeping container, before setting his electric kettle to boil. It was a very old piece of technology, to be sure, as opposed to some of the remarkable flash-boiling kettles he'd seen moving to Hangzhou in his twenties, but it had been his father's and he treasured it. As the water boiled, Guanting reflected: he was not a horticulturalist, actually he was a nano-electronic engineer, for there had been need of nano-electronic engineers when he had begun his studies.

His knowledge of tea came instead from his father, and his nai nai, growing up in a little house in what remained of the Zhejiang countryside. They had taught him about the history of tea, how it had been taken from China to cross the whole world, the stories of individual bushes and gardens and how they had come down to what had been in his cup. He had sat listening attentively to his grandmother (back then, that was what any child was expected to do), as she spoke at their table, had paid careful attention to the different tastes of the teas he was proffered --he had always been partial to keemun--, and though he had to admit sometimes he had grown a little impatient at the minutiae, he had learned about things like oxidation, fermentation, steaming from his father. He listened to how his grandmother had learned from her mother, and her from hers, and on and on up the family line.

Guanting, on the other hand, had to take time to recall what his own children's faces looked like. He knew their names: Fang, Qiu, Lin, Chen, Jian, Ning, and Kun. But their faces were far harder to conjure up. He had only seen them infrequently, after all, especially as they grew into their adolescent years -- living in the heart of Regime land, as he did, they were busy being educated and raised in the creches of Project Aphrodite, needs administered and lives run by impersonal faces. He'd only visited them sparingly throughout their lives, as he'd had his own duty and they'd had theirs. These days, many of his children were experienced professionals in their own fields, and he had a remarkable total of fourty-three grandchildren, not that he even knew their names. Guanting understood why that had to be the case, of course -- he had been there in those dark days when the survival of humanity was a question with few positive answers. He had been part of that lucky yet sorry five thousand responsible for creating a new world. He understood well why the sacrifices made had been made.

Yet, he lived alone, with no other generations in his house, not even his now-deceased wife. He had not sat by his grandchildren near the stove, telling them of what their ancestors before them had learned, had cultivated, had refined. He had not told them of China, of Earth, of what it really meant to grow up Chinese, the tales and communities that he had grown up with, the struggles and sacrifices of his own people's history. Guanting wasn't, really, afraid to die -- he had lived a very long and a very impactful life, and he was ready for his time to come, himself. But what saddened him about his death is what left with him.

Sure, Guanting's children probably called themselves Chinese. They had Chinese names, most of them had actually learned Chinese in their education and their own free studies, and much like most of Gaia's children they probably read voraciously about Earth, idolized its remnants, and kept its loss close to them. But these would only be concepts, viewed from the lens of an identity they had chosen to take. They would not live the live that Guanting lived, and they would certainly not truly understand what it had meant to live like he had. Their world was one of relentless science, of shared humanity, of a regionalism only present in half-formed cultures, of growing up in groups with fifty other children, no true family but the Regime. China would not live on in them, not really. When Guanting died, the knowledge of tea generations had devoted their lives to refining, tenderly cultivating would go with him. When Guanting died, myriad little cases of tradition and outlook no book would ever bother to list would go with him. When Guanting died, a piece of China would be lost -- and in three decades, he suspected that China would be gone, forever.

As he slowly settled down to begin drinking his freshly steeped tea, Guanting reflected that he would just leave behind his musty old jars of leaves, and nobody would understand their meaning.

[Jerick]

Spoiler: A pirate's Life (click to show/hide)

 The water was contaminated, something was leaking. Gal'Vir could taste it. The life support systems could filter it out, but could only keep up if the leak was found. The ship song resounded with a choir of reports from the Liir searching for the source.  Through coordination, they had quickly eliminated a host of possible causes and had narrowed their search down to a single corridor. In it a fuel line had ruptured, ship fuel diffused through the water so thoroughly it had become poison. Gal'Vir watched as if through his own eyes as the crew donned environment suits to swim down the corridor. These environment suits were living things born from the ship's strand weavers, wrapping themselves around the Liir and protecting them. They could survive in a vacuum and with a few hundred nimble moving tendrils they could even move across dry land. Through the ship song Gal'Vir watched as the breach in the metal fuel line was forced closed through telekinetic force. Bands of metal were wrapped around the breach to secure it, the metal being reshaped by the telekinesis of the crew.

   The steel singers had patched the hole. The life web that had spread throughout the ship, living on and in its walls, ceilings and floors perked up as the flow of poison ceased, closing in to replace their lost bretheren. First among them was one that would filter out the fuel and clean the water. That was why they had been made, their purpose determined by each ship, and the strand singers onboard, forming small, isolated ecosystems in the void.

   These were old ships. The one he currently resided on had originally been built by the Suul'ka thousands of years ago. They had kept it running through determination and salvaged tech they found or forcibly acquired. It was once a Suul'ka ship, a large freighter of theirs, but now it was something else entirely. A mish-mash of contrasting, poorly understood technologies sewn together with a skein of biotechnology to stop it all coming apart at the seams. It was a massive ship but it had not been built for combat nor had it been built to be filled with water for a few thousand years. Not in its original form.

   The low groan of its creaking hull reverberated through the water it contained, accentuated by the hiss and bubble of the lifeweb spread throughout. This was the base ship of their little fleet. It had little combat power, but the Suul'ka never did anything by half measures and thus this freighter was far larger than any other ship they had encountered. To everyone else, it was a vast dreadnought built from unknown tech with unknown capabilities. It was a terrifying visage that in truth was only intact due to the endless efforts of its occupants, and a well-placed shot could easily split it open. But it was a intimidating, and it was the heart of the fleet, a mobile base for the nomads. The other ships were ships that similarly had been salvaged or 'requisitioned' from their owners and converted to be a livable environment for the Liir where possible. Not all ships took well to be filled with water and organisms. The ones that did were the true military power of the fleet, which didn't actually amount to all that much. The weapons they had, they didn’t fully understand, and a lot of the differing technology of the alien species they had found often did not take well to being submerged in water, nor did waterproofing membranes always take well.

   The steel singers swam on, there was more work for them to do, more metal for them to reshape. The machine singers sang of their work as they programmed new subroutines into the ship's mainframe to support new additions that had been made. Being unable to fill the mainframe's containment with water without destroying it, they swam outside and manipulated its controls remotely. The strand singers sang of birthing a new more efficient food source that could feed the ship and use less space. The gunner crews sang a tune of vigilance. Every Liir onboard sang and the ship song was beautiful.

   They had swum this void since the fall of the Suul'ka. He had led this fleet the entire time since then. Many were born and had died on these ships, under his care. A moving pocket of civilization in the great deep. But he could not help but worry. Something had changed in the void. His planet-bound kin had gone to war. The song of the ship changed as the crew detected his worries.

One of the crew sang to him <Elder, why are you out of rhythm?> the message was layered with concern and his crew member's own thoughts had leaked into the message adding a layer of <(If Gal'Vir is worried then it's probably bad)> to the song. It was beautiful, the error only adding to the harmony.

<It is all right, I am just thinking of distant and abstract dangers>

<About the war?> <(Isn't the war an opportunity for us? There should be lots of salvage for the taking?)>

<It is an incredible opportunity to get involved in something we have no clue what the outcome will be. To get involved where our presence would not go unnoticed or unchallenged. We can pick the bones of the losers when the sediment has settled. Not before. This is the current we must follow if we want to avoid destruction. But the violence of the war is not the only thing bringing me worry. I worry about what it represents. Our kin who swim in Va’Laara’s waters, they worry me. Did you know I once took the fleet near our home, close enough to hear its song? Can you guess what I heard?>

Various members of the crew offered suggestions, their participation in the conversation consistent regardless of their distance or the tasks they were performing. None fit though, none were accurate.

<Homogeneity. They were a democracy, a true democracy full of individuals where every voice is heard directly and immediately. No set government, there is no need for such an organization. The population is the government. They were a democratic anarchy. Something impossible without the song. But then why are all so similar? Why was there so little dissent and division in the song? Why aren't there factions like our illustrious fleet? It took me a while to figure it out. A little too long for my own worries. The song itself is to blame. It is an echo chamber. The mainstream opinions grow louder and the less mainstream opinions grow quieter. The young hear the song as soon as they are born. Their minds are flooded with the dominant ideologies of the song when they first start thinking. The song is our greatest strength and our most profound weakness. It is why I have asked us to perform fleet song only in battle, why I want us to remain within our ship songs and why I want everyone to rotate the ships they serve on. The nomad fleets are diverse and we must maintain our diversity>

<I don't understand. Why is a long past visit to the homeworld worrying you now?>

<Listen young ones and listen well; I can be wrong. In fact, I often am wrong. I hope I am wrong about this. Their song, that political echo chamber of theirs, can allow terrible ideas to go unchallenged and unexamined. It does not let them see when they are wrong. On its own, it is concerning but mix that with war and it produces something that worries me greatly>

<You're scared they're going to lose?>

<No young one, I'm scared about what will happen if they win>

Some Liir lore with edits by Doomblade.

[NUKE9.13]

A brief explanation of how drones function, to preface eS's drone-perspective piece:


A note of clarification regarding drones.
There has been some confusion regarding the status of drones. There has been some debate within our team on the issue. We have reached a consensus, which I will now explain.
The confusion was thus: are drones fully sapient beings that are just brain-washed into serving as slaves for the higher castes, or are they biological robots with not an iota of free will? The answer to this "or" question is no. Drones are neither fully-sapient slaves, nor mindless robots.
The thing is, in order to be able to function as workers for the colony, drones need to be smart enough to function semi-independently. This, by necessity, makes them smart enough to question their lot in life. However, it does not make them smart enough to actually reach a sensible conclusion doing so. Rather, a drone that starts to contemplate the meaning of life will quickly find its small, primitive mind tangled up in concepts beyond its comprehension- thereby crippling the drone, making it a much less effective worker, and causing it unnecessary distress to boot. It is, therefore, necessary for drones to be 'educated' as to their role in life- to have their primitive minds hammered out into a perfect tool, free from the want or need to contemplate matters beyond its scope.

[evictedSaint]

[We]

One of Many.

He was one of many, and he would perform his role.

Beta Combat Drone 22, of Batch 309, of Queen 1, of Queen 3, of Queen 1, of Queen 2, of Queen 1, of Queen 1, was of the [Sky Breaker] Lineage.
 
Although it would be an honor far beyond his station to give him an informal name, we will refer to this particular cog as BC22.
 
BC22 was a pilot. 
 
He was one of many, and he would perform his role.
 
In particular, he was one of the six hundred or so fighters in the Hiver Task Force Fleet 1.  His current Queen was not his [Mother Queen], but instead the [Mother Queen] of his [Mother Queen] – the [Grand Mother Queen].  As ordered, he’d changed the nature of his allegiance to serve the [Grand Mother Queen] and would perform his role in the fleet as best he was able.
 
At the moment, his role was to sit in this dark, cramped space and wait.  Machinery kept him alive.  Nutrients, water, and air came through a tube.  Waste left through a different tube.  The space was kept at a survivable temperature, and he had just enough free space to periodically stretch and tone his limbs.  His brain was routinely tapped to perform mundane calculations, keeping his mind active.  Time passed, and he continued to exist. 
 
In this way, BC22 performed his role - as was expected of him.
 
He had no thoughts on the matter.  There was nothing to think about. 
 
He was one of many, and he would perform his role.
 
Today, his role would be something different.  The [Grand Mother Queen] had given commands to the fleet, most of which did not concern him.  Those commands which did concern him were not for him, but instead for the Prince who commanded him. 
 
Regardless of whether or not these commands concerned him, BC22 was not concerned.
 
He was one of many, and he would perform his role.
 
He was aware, of course.  What parts of his brain weren’t occupied with performing parallel calculations for those above were free to consider the implications of what was happening.  He could tap into the psicom network freely and observe, though with limited awareness.  Battle was coming.  His role would become more important, and he would be able serve his [Grand Mother Queen] in a more direct fashion.  This made BC22 happy.
 
As a Drone – a Beta Combat Drone, no less – BC22 didn’t have particularly complex emotions.  He could feel joy, anger, and despair.  They were muted, compared to the rainbow of emotions a human or Prince might feel.  It was a step above basic gray-scale.  Shallow, basic, and just enough to perform the evolutionary reactions that drove an organisms default self-preservation instincts.
 
Regardless of complexity, BC22 was happy.
 
The psionic communications field rippled as commands flowed throughout, and subtle shifts in the gravitation field indicated the ship was maneuvering.  A Prince – his Prince, aboard one of the Deliverance carriers – looped into BC22’s psionic awareness.  It was a brief tap, simply requesting a status report and familiarizing himself with the Drones under his command.  BC22 dutifully returned his status, as requested. 
 
Systems are functional, as per last analysis.
Last analysis performed 0.08 cycles ago.
Biological readings are stable.
Relentless is loaded.
Relentless is fueled.
This Drone will perform his role.
 
The looped connection remained in place as the Prince shifted his focus to the next drone in the Fist.  BC22’s Fist contained twenty-five Relentless fighters, loaded with anti-fighter armaments.  They were managed by their Prince, who was managed by another Prince, who was managed by the Princess commanding the Deliverance, who was managed by the [Grand Mother Queen] commanding the Wrath.  There were many Drones and Princes and Princesses.  Everyone performed their role.
 
The psionic command loop tensed as orders trickled down the line.  BC22 easily brought his Relentless Star Fighter online as ordered – these fighter craft were kept in standby mode in perpetuity and could be launched in a moments notice.  His helmet blinked and chittered softly as the screens lit up and data feeds populated the HUD.  Most of that data would be singular; tuned to his craft and his immediate objectives.  Fuel, status reports, weapon readings, targeting and ballistics data, navigation pipelines – everything he would need to perform his task.  His Prince would handle Fist-scale tactics.  That Prince’s Prince would handle Wing-scale tactics.  That Prince’s Princess would handle Complement-scale tactics.  And that Princess’s Queen would handle Battle Fleet-scale tactics.

Each were one of many, and each would perform their role.

BC22 could feel a dull boom…boom…boom…as the railways launched fighters into the local battlespace.  He could sense the accompanying blip extension on his psicom as other elements of his Fist were launched first.  His turn was coming.  He braced himself.

The umbilical chord, which fed his fightercraft air, power, fuel, nutrients, and everything else BC22 needed to continue living, detached.  From that moment on, BC22 was on a timer.  Until that umbilical chord was reattached, he would be burning down the hours, minutes, and seconds of life he had left.  All of it in service of the [Grand Mother Queen].

He was one of many, and he would perform his role.

The Relentless shifted, dropping down and fitting into the rails the moment they were clear.  He only had a moment to brace himself, then 16 G’s of acceleration slammed him into his gravity couch.  The Deliverance’s railgun had launched him free of the ship, out of the localized gravity well, and hurtling towards the cluster of Relentless Star Fighters which made up his Fist.  His body, tuned and shaped specifically for these types of forces, struggled to keep conscious.  Despite the brutal launch, BC22 felt the order come across the psicom and laid down on the throttle.  Massive chemical engines fired, giving him no relief from the chitin-bending acceleration.  He was one of the last to be launched, and he had to rejoin the Fist.

He regrouped with the other Relentless craft just as the Deliverance’s Bore Genesis bloomed open; effervescent, glowing like a radioactive scar in the fabric of time and space.  He and more than four-hundred other Relentless Star Fighters blasted through the hole in reality, and battle was joined.

The sudden shift from the glowing Bore Genesis to an entirely different location in reality would have been disorienting, but the psionic control dismissed the instinctive confusion immediately.  There was red work to be done, and his Prince had no time for uncertain Drones.  Ahead of him, BC22 could see three glowing Bore Termini illuminated on his HUD.  Ships of various sizes slid through, each glowing on his HUD as potential targets.  The [Enemy].  [Invaders].  [Interlopers].

The [Silent].
 
The rising vitriol he felt was squashed instantly.  His Prince calmly smoothed that distraction flat, and BC22 was focused once more.  Loaded with anti-fighter armaments, he would be engaged with the strange, non-organic drones the [Silent Invaders] used.  The strike fighters with their Tremor torpedoes would be engaging the large ships.  BC22 was ready. 

He was one of many, and he would perform his role.
 
Two glowing streaks of light carved a burning swath down the screen of his HUD.  The Wrath had fired, unleashing its fury on the creatures which so resembled those who had attempted to exterminate them, so long ago.  Elation was again crushed flat by his Prince, but a sense of [Righteous Pride] lingered.  The [Sunbeams] had hit, hurting the [Silent].  They had struck the first blow.  The [Interlopers] had been injured.  [We] would not die so easily.

More streaks crossed his screens, but they were unimportant.  His Fist had been tasked to join with the enemy fighter squadrons.  His Prince had decided that the beams of light bridging the distance between the two fleets was not relevant to his mission, and so BC22 focused on his task at hand. 

Gaian Hornets were small, unarmored, and [Silent].  They were [Prey] in every sense of the word.  Nimble, but BC22 knew how to deal with that.  His Relentless tilted briefly as an LRM detached from his craft and went streaking towards the Hornet his Prince had assigned to him.  As expected, a small cut appeared in the fabric of reality, and the enemy Drone Bored out of the way.  The LRM, deprived of its rightful prey, spiraled aimlessly into the void.  BC22 was not caught off-guard, and calmly fired his second missile.  The Hornets could be beaten.  His Prince had told him how.  All around him, kilometers away, other elements of his Fist fired their weapons too.  Missiles exploded among the enemy Drones, killing anything caught within range.  BC22 hit his target, and with the gentle nudge from his Prince he fired a third time. 

At this point, the fighters had closed the distance to the point where the [Silent] were within effective range of his dual laser cannons.  He fired, swapping between targets as the first erupted into a cloud of debris.  His third missile had struck home, and by the time he’d drawn a bead on his next target BC22 had scored three kills.

As one, his Fist abruptly turned and burned their engines.

Hornet shattergun charges rippled through his Fist.  BC22 and his fellow Drones performed evasive maneuvers, but he could feel a dozen blips vanish off his psicom.  The maneuver was unexpected, and it didn’t make any sense – they were winning!  The [Silent] Hornets were vanishing into clouds of debris, the battle would be over so soon!  Why had his Prince ordered him to abandon the fight?

He was one of many, and he would perform his role.

The strike fighters had missed their target, firing well in advance and wasting their torpedoes.  Caught in the lurch, they were easy targets for Gaian shatterguns.  BC22 launched two more LRM’s, nailing one, then two of the Hornets focused on the decelerating Relentless strike fighters.  This marked his fifth kill.  BC22 had just Aced himself – a meaningless concept for Drones, Gaian and Hiver alike.

He briefly wondered if the battle was going well, but that thought was stricken from his mind.  Red work to be done.  No time for distractions.

BC22 laid down hard on the stick, sending the nose of his fighter down.  Secondary arms manipulated the orientation controls, and his four legs expertly adjusted the lateral positioning jets.  Shrapnel zipped past his craft, mere meters away.  Death was evaded, and his usefulness could yet persist.  Laser cannons thrummed, their capacitors overfull with power siphoned from his engines.  Another Hornet went down, and then he was firing at a frigate.  The lasers took on a deeper whine as they switched to high-power mode, and small specks of fire erupted on the zoomed portion of his HUD. 

Damage was being done to the enemy, but his Prince knew it wasn’t enough.  Nowhere near enough.  Missiles exploded kilometers away, and monowire ripped a bloody swath through what was left of his Fist.  BC22’s HUD beeped with alarm as a few strands cut into his fighter, but the damage was superficial.  A missile destroyed, air supply ruptured.  He lived still, but his Fist was gone.  His usefulness could continue, but it would be without his Brood-mates

Just like that, his Prince was his Prince no longer.  The sudden static only lasted a split second, and during that moment of unfocused thought BC22 realized the Deliverance holding his Prince had vanished in a cloud of nuclear fire.  The moment ended, and that thought was gone.  BC22 found himself folded into a new Fist, formed of other shattered Fists.  Fellow Drones lit up his psicom as he was looped in under a new Prince’s command.  His Fist was at full strength once more.  Scattered and damaged, but at full strength.

He was one of many, and he would perform his role.

Navigation plotted a line towards the Wrath.  Without thinking twice, BC22 pushed his battered Relentless and carved a path towards where he was needed.  The rest of his Fist joined him, entering formation.  Those who still had LRM’s fired them as soon as they entered range, and the twinkle of laser cannons illuminated the enemy specks on his HUD.

Where was the Wrath?  There it was – where was the Deliverance carriers?  Why were they not screening them?  If they were dying, then surely he and his Fist were needed, right?  The [Grand Mother Queen] commanded the Wrath, surely she could protect herself.  If they were being sent to cover the Wrath, just how bad was it?

The uncertainty and growing fear blossomed, and for a moment BC22 ran the serious risk of losing sight of his task at hand.  But his Prince – his Prince smoothed those worries away. His mind sharpened, and his focus was once more in control.

Lines of glowing fire, blooms of venting atmosphere, shrapnel and wire and pale red snow filled the hungry vacuum outside his craft.  The Hornets were no longer the focus; they were gone, more or less.  BC22 and his brethren had driven them to extinction, just like so many other threats on Regalis.  The [Silent] ships were his target, and his last LRM ripped across the expanse.  It exploded harmlessly on the thick forward armor of the enemy corvette, but he followed it with laser blasts regardless.  His entire Fist – the entire Fleet – was firing on these ships.  BC22 didn’t even have the spare brain cycles to contemplate why until a moment later.

The silence was uncanny.  The scale of the collision was massive – far larger than his Heads Up Display could do justice.  Burning atmosphere gushed out of the gaping wounds and the Wrath twisted from the sudden impact.  Then another shining blade stabbed into the [Grand Mother Queen].  And another.  And Another.

A moment passed, and nuclear fire billowed from the gaping wounds with an intensity that made BC22’s screens flicker.   

The [Queen] lived. 

Trembling relief trickled throughout the fleet.  The [Queen] lived.  The [Silent] had won the battle – masterfully, but by an incredible stroke of luck the [Queen] still lived.  The few ships that remained loitered uncertainly, wondering what awaited.  Would they be able to flee? Would the [Silent] demand the fleet as spoils?  The [Grand Mother Queen] would undoubtedly refuse, but other terms could be reached.  The ship was little more than a skeleton adrift in space, but they still had carriers and fighters.  They could still hurt the [Silent].  That was a position of some strength, which could lend leverage to negotiating the nature of the [Queen’s] [Checkmate].

The Prince above BC22 was a novice to allow such thoughts to run unchecked through a Drones head.  He plugged away idly at [Silent] ships loitering nearby, playing out the final moments of his life as those above him contemplated the [Checkmate].  He would die soon, or be ordered to stand down.  His last remaining usefulness existed solely to prick the [Silent] during these last seconds, to draw what blood he could. 

But [Checkmate] never came.

After all, the [Silent] don’t negotiate.

Beams of light arched through the dust-filled vacuum and cut into the crippled Wrath.  One after another, they sliced and cut and dug.  It didn’t take long for them to implement their clumsy execution, but there was no mistaking it when it was finished.  The death of the [Grand Mother Queen] felt like a hole being punched straight through BC22’s thorax.

All throughout the system, every single Hiver had the same reaction.  Loss, powerful and overwhelming.  Disbelief, shocked outrage.  The fumble of psionic orders as the most senior of the surviving Princesses assumed control. 

Feeling very empty, BC22 turned his Relentless and opened the throttle to rendezvous with the remaining carriers for their retreat.  That half-contemplated maneuver was aborted instantly.  Those who could not be recovered would buy time for those who could.

BC22 could not be recovered.

He was one of many, and he would perform his role.

His Relentless turned around and fired, running the capacitors dry.  Condensed light slammed into the enemy frigates, doing little damage.  That didn’t matter – BC22 was doing what they needed him to.  He drew attention, and he made pursuit dangerous.  Without even really noticing it, he was folded into a new Fist, consisting of all those who would be left behind.  For as long as the carriers remained in the system, they fought as one.  Coordinated, focusing fire, slipping and burning and doing everything in their power to draw one more drop of blood from the [Silent].  To hurt them one last time.  To buy time for the others to escape.

His Fist crumbled as monowire and shattergun charges ripped through. 

When the last carrier exited the system, what cohesion the last few members of his Fist had fell apart.  BC22, his mind now free to think, thought of nothing.  He picked his targets at random and fired at the center of mass.  He dodged what he could, but without someone there to feed him the bigger picture there was very little he was capable of.  His death was not a glamorous last stand.  Within seconds of the carriers leaving, a wall of shrapnel caught him by surprise.  BC22 was no more.

He was one of many, and he had performed his role.