The Spartan Chronicles - Volume 4

[Googlie]

Free Drone Central

I deactivated the commlink, and gazed out of the window, deep in thought.

Cyrus Peake's plan was audacious, but do-able, so long as he kept his side of the bargain.

I began to assemble the plan in my mind.

I keyed in some combinations, and one by one my contacts appeared holographically in the Command Center.

Ian. Miles Cavanaugh. Trixie Patterson. Lisa Mayberry. Paula Forbes. Ron Stone.

They looked expectantly at the holovid camera that in each instance was probably above the screen where they saw my face.

"Logistics first - where are you all?" I began.

Ian was at Great Conclave, as military coordinator. Miles, Trixie and, to my surprise, Paula, were here at FDC. Lisa was at Fort Legion, her wing having been recalled there for the defense of the Spartan homeland.

"Lisa - you're excused. Too far away - and the less you know of this the better. Give my regards to Corrie."

With that I cut the link to her.

"What's this about?" asked Ian. "And if Colonel Mayberry shouldn't hear whatever we're about to discuss, should I?"

"You're right," I said. "You were necessary if she had a role. And as she doesn't, you're expendable."

I cut the link to my son.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Here is what I propose."

*************************************************

Due North of Temple of Chiron

Julia held up her hand for them to stop, then went ahead alone to reconnoiter.

Thankfully Conrad and Toby lowered the hammock to the ground, and Mike Potter grunted as he felt the hard surface beneath him.

He looked quizzically at his bearers.

"Heard a noise,' muttered Conrad. "Went to investigate. Thinks that it might be Hive searchers looking for us."

Potter nodded, and rolled to one side. "I can hobble to cover if we need to," he said, wincing even as he spoke as the pain lanced through his legs. Even with the field surgery pack applied, his broken leg was taking what seemed to be an inordinate amount of time to heal.

Ahead, Julia picked her way through the fungus fronds, till she crested a small hill and looked over the other side into a small clearing. Beyond, she could see the blue of the ocean in the distance. There were three people there, what seemed to be two women and a man, civilians, from their garb, huddling over what at that distance appeared to be a commlink.

Julia backed down, and retraced her steps to her crewmate and the Peacekeeper team.

"So I don't think they are hostile," she finished. Probably lost and seeking directions. Or maybe a scientific team of some kind. I vote we establish contact."

Her colleagues nodded agreement, so Julia went back to the top of the hill, and stopped in surprise.

There were around 25 or 30 children milling about the three adults, some clapping hands excitedly, while the adults tried to quieten them.

They did soon enough when Julia materialized from among the fungus fronds, and Julia herself was surprised to see Francine Hawkins there, the creche mistress from Temple of Chiron. They knew each other, but just on casual acquaintance terms.

Julia whistled, and shortly thereafter Toby and Conrad lumbered out from the fungus carrying Mike Potter between them.

Introductions made, Tony Ward, who seemed to have assumed the leadership of the group notwithstanding Francine's position, explained what was exciting them so.

"We were contacted by Scott Allardyce himself. Seems he was given Francine's commlink number by my sister, Brooke, who is a captive of the Hive at Temple. Anyway, we are to make our way to the coast yonder - about a two days' hike, I reckon, where we'll be picked up by an empath gatling skimship that Allardyce has somehow persuaded to divert from its patrol around UN Marine Agency. It'll be a tight fit, but at least we'll get out of the Hive's clutches.

"And get you some proper medical attention, Sir," he added, looking at Potter.

"It'll take us more than two days to reach the coast carrying Potter," Conrad said. "Maybe they can took your lot out and come back for us?"

"Not a problem," Tony said. "We have an old converted Unity rover that we came here in - pretty slow through the fungus, but not bad once we are on open road. And we came up from the coast - that's where we were camping - the fungus runs out in another couple of hundred meters or so. We came in here to hide from the Hive patrols. But they have stopped overflying us for the last few days now - probably given us up for dead."

"Conrad nodded. "That'll work then. You're in command, so lead on."

Tony looked over at Ms Hawkins, who nodded, then to Julia, the ranking Gaian officer.

Julia nodded as well. "It's your command," she said. "Lead on."

************************************************

Temple of Chiron

Brooke Ward stood in the makeshift Command Center facing General Peake and Colonel Hsui.

"I understand," she said. "What I don't quite follow is why you are doing this. Two days ago you wanted nothing to do with the problem, and now you are part of the solution. Why?"

"Let's put it this way," Peake replied.

"We are not inhuman monsters. Oh, yes, we have our differences in how we structure society, and in our values system. But peel us apart and we are not that different. In fact, the differences that divide Hiveans from Gaians from Morganites are miniscule compared to those that separate us humans from the Progenitors.

"Am I taking a risk? Absolutely. But I am banking on the unavailability of the Usurper commander at this juncture. So play your part to the hilt, as I will mine, and the result should be beneficial to us all."

Brooke nodded.

"Now go back and prepare your colleagues," Peake added, and with that, Brooke was escorted back to the Prisoners' Compound.

Cyrus Peake turned to Seng Hsui.

"Go and find Canla. Keep her occupied."

Seng nodded and left.

*********************************************

Garden of Paradise

The base Governor had granted the afternoon off to the whole base to welcome the visitors.

Now they crowded on the small landing strip at the air terminal - the garrison being the honor guard, and the schoolchildren clutching their Morganite flags that had been hastily prepared and issued for the occasion.

They heard them before they saw them, the THRUB THRUB THRUB of the rotors, then they came into view. Over the 1150 meter peak in the Monsoon Jungle, and following the river's course as it meandered down the hillside to Garden of Paradise itself.

As they came in, the MorganNews insignia could be seen clearly, and the absence of any kind of weapons pods indicated that they were indeed civilian craft, as advertised.

They landed, and taxied to the apron where the guard presented arms, and the Governor stepped forward to meet the guests.

First out was a diminutive redhead whom they immediately recognized as the MorganNews evening anchor, Paula Forbes. The children cheered, and the Governor extended his hand:

"Our facilities are at your disposal, for repair, rest and recreation. I understand that you have had an exceedingly long flight."

"Indeed," Paula replied. "We came via Deep Community, so we are not so battered as we might have been had we come directly. But we cannot stay more than a day.

"The co-operation we are receiving for this major piece is incredible - from all the warring factions.

"But allow me to introduce my companion," she added, turning to the chopper, where a black cloaked figure descended.

"Haraad Ashaandi."

[Googlie]

The Manifold Nexus

Darkness came quickly to the shaded are where Canla crouched, silent in contemplation. She looked above her, picking out the stars that flickered beyond the ruins of the roof, seeking Homeworld - Harmony - from which the Usurpers had been banished many thousands of turnings ago, driving them to create the Rim Systems, around the periphery of the Tau Ceti star system of which Harmony was its only inhabitable planet - and currently occupied by the hated Caretakers.

She glanced at her commlink display, just to confirm the time. Innately, she knew to within tenths, what time it was, day or night, regardless of season.

It was time.

Looking up past the great buttresses at the ruins of the vaulted ceiling, she saw the faint glimmer of a star appearing as Chiron lazily turned on its axis.

Tau Ceti.

She trilled the hexachord, as the ancient datadisks had outlined, softly at first, then with growing confidence as she realized that the Nexus itself was replying. Well, not so much replying as catching, amplifying and returning the faint resonance of her trilling. She felt it in her very being, tusks and skeleton resonating with the sound, now continuing of its own accord, as she had grown silent.

Canla heard a faint rumble behind her, and turned to look at the wall, which irised into an open door.

She got up, and shuffled through.

*************************************************

And stopped in her tracks.

Although the wall had appeared from inside and outside to be just about as thick as a forelimb, Canla had entered into a small auditorium, perhaps a boardroom, or command center of some kind. The ancient disks had told of such rooms - where the Conquerors gathered to plan strategy. Indeed some said that the current Command Centers of the Usurpers were modeled after these ancient edifices.

There was a raised tablet in the center, and six chairs around it.

Canla ran a talon along the top of one, wondering for how many millennia it had sat there, and who had occupied it at one time. It felt almost alive to her touch.

She drew back.

And was startled to hear and sense the chamber resonate with a greeting:

"Welcome. Please be seated."

'Must be an ancient recording that I've activated,' she thought, moving round the dais to the head of the table where she lowered herself onto the chair.

"Greetings, Supreme Conqueror Xontrex. What do you wish displayed today?

Canla sat transfixed.

Xontrex.

The fabled Progenitor SpaceFleet Commander from before the Flowering. Before the Secession Wars. She was sitting in his seat, and the AI thought she was he.

She shivered slightly. Hesitant.

We wait your command the chamber resonated.

She pondered. Then altered:

"Display the Six Manifolds."

The room dimmed, and from nowhere, arcane machinery activated and in front of her there appeared, hovering above the dais, six points of light. On a lower plane were three, with a fourth above them and in the center, as if the apex of a cone. Above it were two more, slightly offset, as if lacking a third to complete the symmetry of an inverted cone resting at apex point on the apex of a stable cone.

Canla studied the image, intuitively recognizing the pattern.. this was what she had studied her whole life for.

"Add the original Manifold" she resonated softly.

As expected, a pinpoint of light blinked into existence where she had seen the missing space, completing the base of the inverted cone.

"Identify," she altered.

Suspended beneath the pinpoints of light appeared tiny icons, which, when Canla directed a barely imperceptible hum towards each, responded with their identifier.

The lower plane trio were Cygni, Epsilon Indi and Groombridge. The central point was Alpha Centauri. The two remaining were Sirius and Epsilon Eridani. The extinguished one was Tau Ceti itself.

Canla gazed long tenths at the holograph, then resonated quietly:

"Show me the spatial context, and the Flowering."

Other pinpoints of light sprang into view - Sol, Altair, Lalande, Wolf, Procyon. She watched in fascination as the pinprick of light that represented Tau Ceti darkened, and then expanded, rushing through the vortex of space to encompass the manifolds themselves, yet growing paler and weaker as its strength dissipated on the outer reaches of the displayed universe until at its fringes it fluttered into nothingness.

"Can they still be linked?" she asked of the chamber.

Indeed. You wish us to, Supreme Conqueror Xontrex?

Canla pondered.

"Not physically - but schematically. Show me what happens."

The holograph came to life again. Where Tau Ceti had been there appeared Harmony. Then the micron-thin beams of light sprang from Alpha Centauri linking each of the other six, which in turn linked with each other. And expanded to the other stars, and yet more appeared: Ross, Barnard, Kapteyn, Lacaille, Kruger. All linked by the light beams until the space in front of her was a lattice work of light filaments.

"And what of Manifold Six?" she asked. "Magnify, and show me the Manifold."

Abruptly the lattice shimmered out of existence, and in its place came the familiar shape of Chiron.

But now it was pulsing with energy. She could recognize the fungal net crossing the landmasses and the oceans, but now it seemed vibrant, expanding and contracting, as though she were watching pulmonary action on a laboratory specimen. Lancets of light shot out crisscrossing the planetary surface, emanating clearly from where she was, the Manifold Nexus.

"What are they?" she asked.

The intelligence seemed momentarily nonplussed, as if taken aback.

They are by your command, Supreme Conqueror Xontrex. They are the dormant energy banks and psi portals that you established for the founding of future bases.

'Ah, the monoliths,' Canla inwardly resonated.

But more so, Canla was now aware of a brooding, palpable presence - and recognized it for what it was - the sentience of the other Manifolds clamoring for attention from the Nexus. She looked at the planetary representation before her - at the tiny coruscations erupting all over the surface, and resonated inwardly:

'There isn't much time.'

Reluctantly, she rose.

You are leaving, Supreme Commander? Will you be visiting again soon?

"Absolutely," she altered. "And with company."

Exiting the chamber, she paused to see the door iris shut, and to the naked eye there was no idication that one had ever existed.

She tapped her commlink controls.

"Get me Conqueror Marr. Immediately," she hissed at the flunkey whose visage appeared on the screen.

Her commlink spat: "Marr here. This had better be important, young Stochastic Canla. You are interrupting a meeting of some importance."

Canla bowed her head, exposing her throat, not sure if the tiny molecular camera caught her obeisance.

"It is, Honored Conqueror. I desire to bring you here and show you what I have learned."

"And just what have you discovered," he altered.

"The Secrets of the Manifolds," she resonated excitedly.

[senatus]

Strategic Planning Centre, Sparta Command

The twin supercomputers of the Command Nexus ran at feverish intensity
within their liquid helium baths, analyzing possibilities and predicting
battle outcomes down to the life and death, death or victory for thousands
of individual soldiers in the most intensive, critical simulation that
the Spartan Federation had ever staged.

Seated around the main holo were all of Sparta's active generals, wordlessly
observing the virtual battle being played out before them.  There
was no need for words; each of the generals was in constant communications
with his or her "troops", as well as the other commanders, via their command
MMIs.  The room was dimly illuminated; the light from the holotable
was playing off the generals' faces, and combined with their wordless silence,
the image was eerily serene.  Nor was their much movement, although
General Lockhart involuntarily flinched as "his" command rover was destroyed
by enemy weapons fire.  He was still able to observe, of course, and
even give orders - but only in the capacity of one of his subordinate commanders,
based on the information and plans those subordinates had available to
them.

Newly-minted Field Marshal Salvadore St. James savagely resisted the
urge to rub his eyes in fatigue.  Besides, mental fatigue was useful;
it helped accurately model the combat situation he'd possibly be facing. 
That made it particularily important to have mapped as many probabilities
and contigencies in advance, rather than relying on unpredictable flashes
of on-the-spot brilliance.  While a well-known axiom of battle was
that no plan survived contact with the enemy,  practicing and reviewing
the objectives with his own generals meant that each of them would be able
to respond locally to surprises on the battlefield and still be able to
adapt quickly to meet those objectives.  Spartan doctrine even emphasized
the value of personal initiative on behalf of not just the generals
and officers, but even the lowest-ranked individual soldier.  As Lockhart
had just demonstrated, it was entirely possible that a general could "die"
on this battlefield; but his subordinates down to the lowly privates would
be instantly ready to adapt as the situation warranted.  This adaptability
and initiative was, in part, what made the Spartans the warrior elite of
all the human soldiers on Planet.

The "Gecko" nodded in some satisfaction as he saw the same fatigue in
his generals also subordinated to the legendary Spartan self-discipline.

They're damn good, he thought.  Cassaroni, Lockhart,
Wang and Honshu... 96 hours of sims, fourteen scenario iterations, and
the Nexus still reports 98.7% performance baseline.   I wish
the we could win 98.7% of the scenarios though!

The truth was, things didn't look good in all nine of the simulations
of direct conflict with the aliens.  Three of them, predicated upon
intelligent tactical and strategic actions on behalf of the bugs - ended
in massive casaulties for Sparta, coupled with methodical elimination of
all of Sparta's remaining bases, beginning with Sparta Command.  Of
course, Santiago herself had "commanded" the alien forces in that the opposition
AI, played by the Command Nexus supercomputer, worked within strategic
parameters designed by Corazon.  And they had mopped the floor with
Sparta's best; a fact that St-James hoped that Honshu had noted. 
Four more scenarios predicating that the aliens were poor military
strategists - as perhaps implied by their tactics when taking Hero's Waypoint
and Janissary Point - had still ended with the total conquest of
the Spartan Federation, although at least they had inflicted severe losses
upon the aliens.

It was General Lockhart who'd suggested the most optimal strategies
leading to two somewhat more successful scenarios; in these, the Spartans
had dispersed their armour into skirmisher formations, attacking in open
ground against targets of opportunity, and retreating with their superiour
mobility against the alien war machines' counter-strikes, instead forcing
them to eventually commit and expose their gravships.  Even this though
had ended with a decisive victory for the aliens, controlling the vital
production and infrastructure bases, with only a few outlying bases such
as Assassin's Redoubt surviving through virtue of being ignored.

In all nine of the scenario simulations, the very base that St-James
and the Junta were running their simulations from, fell within five days
of the simulated alien assault.  Sparta Command.  The results
had shaken the Junta - perhaps even, or most especially, Honshu - but they
were Spartans, all of them, and adapted rather than flinching from the
brutal, if simulated, facts.

So instead, they accepted what appeared to be inevitable, as St-James
himself had a few days ago, recalling the conversation with Corazon Santiago.

"We're going to lose Sparta Command for certain, aren't we," St-James
had asked.

"I think so," Santiago had replied.  "You'll need to game out
the scenarios, of course - maybe Honshu really is the military god he thinks
he is, and can devise a winning strategy.  If so, use it, and maybe
he really should be in charge when this is all over.  But I've
run the math, and this is a battle we will lose.  So can we turn it
into a war we can win?"

"You're thinking of using Sparta Command as a sacrifice?"  St-James
queried.

"If it saves the Federation, then yes.  We're a faction of survivors,
Salvadore.  Hell, if Miriam's Believers can survive losing New Jerusalem
and come back a hundred years later, then we Spartans can surely do no
less.  And it could return the initiative to us, you see?"

"Yes... I do," the Gecko replied, his mind whirring like a computer,
seeing the same possibilities that Santiago had.  "The aliens can
literally drop in almost anywhere within our interiour, and have a mobile
force in those gravships we can't match.  They could attack anywhere
they wish, and so have the initiative.  But if we present them a target
we know they'll have to go for, then we can choose the battle
site and reclaim the initiative.  Meaning that our attack will be
matched against their defence.  It's still uneven, but not nearly
as bad as our defending against their attack weaponry.  But what makes
you sure they'd come here first?"

"We make this - ostensibly - our stand.  They will come, it's
in their blood and their culture.   You read the report on Progenitor
Psych that Miriam and Morgan's people put together; they have a tribal
warrior culture.  Surprising, given their advanced technology - or
perhaps not, since they are  a civilization in decline, living on
the higher achievements of previous generations.  Look at the 'challenge'
they issued us at first.  If they follow the same pattern of behaviour
- and why shouldn't they?  They have won all the battles so far, and
expect to keep winning.  Give them a few more 'victories' to reward
that pattern, and we should be able to guarantee that they won't change
their formula when they come to Sparta Command," Santiago predicted.

"And once they take it, they'll be exactly where we planned them
to be.  And knowing this in advance, we can optimize our counter-attack," 
St-James finished.

It was probably the best plan they had, in that it was the only plan
that offered a long term victory.  St-James knew this, but still he
had to be certain there were no other options.  Hence the first nine
war simulations.  There was always some room for error in the simulations
- even the Command Nexus couldn't model everything - but not the margin
required to hold Sparta Command. And now that the Junta knew it too. 
It was ruthless; knowingly sacrificing thousands of Spartan soldiers and
civilians just to get the aliens into a position where the Spartan army
and airforce would probably be able to force the most favorable
terms of engagement, and might be able to achieve a victory after
all.

Some members of the Junta had balked at first, but St-James had found
a surprising ally.

"We must be pragmatic," Honshu had told the Junta.  "Not one
among us can be glad about the sacrifices we must ask of our people. 
But they are Spartan.  In history, great nations withered and fell
as they lost their will to fight and die.   Look to the United
States of old Earth, and the decline and fall of the British or Roman empires. 
At the peak of their strength, they became afraid of what they had to lose,
and so they lost their ability to win. But we are not afraid.  Our
people are warriors; we do not embrace war, but neither do we flinch from
its consequences.  Our people are warriors, our people are Spartans!"

Nice speech, St-James had thought sardonically.  He does
know how to play to a crowd.  But then, so did Julius Caesar. 
Doesn't change the fact that he's right, after all.

And so the Junta had run the last set of simulations, based on the strategy
that Santiago and St-James - and Honshu - had set forth.  Even the
first had looked promising, yielding a victory probability of 24%. 
Which was about twenty percentage points above the previous options. 
The past thirty-six hours had been spent making successively smaller iterations
to the plan, and now their victory margin looked almost even.

One by one the Junta's generals fell silent as the final simulation
reached its close; Cassaroni and Wang were now "dead", for the armour units
had suffered huge losses in the battle.  But they weren't expected
to survive. Their units had given the simulated opponents much grief in the early
phases of the simulation; now that they were eliminated, the aliens rushed
in, knowing that nothing further opposed them, other than insignificant
ground troops.  Only Honshu and Lockhart remained; the Militia and
the 469^th were primarily composed of these "insignificant" infantry
units.

But these were Spartan infantry units.  Elites.  Capable
of covering twice the distance that anyone else could, fighting twice as
hard.

The simulation completed, and the Junta looked at one another. 
A ghost of a sigh could almost be heard through the room, though none of
them said a word, until finally Salvadore St-James spoke.

"Members of the Junta - I believe we are done with the simulations. 
Prepare your troops for combat."

Odd that with all our advances, it comes down to the common soldier
slogging through the mud.  In chess, we must make sacrifices to win. 
And in life, infantry is the queen of battles.

[senatus]

Chiron Seas, Southwest of Sparta

Patricia MacMillan tossed uneasily in her sleep.

"Here it is", Santiago said.  "Our unity rover patrol spotted
it washed up on the beach."

MacMillan checked her breather mask before stepping out of the rover's
hatchway, but the function was an automatic survivor's mechanism. 
Most of her attention was on the dull gray hover foil sprawled awkwardly
on the forsaken beach.  A Spartan guard saluted the two women and
stepped aside from the foil's hatchway, and MacMillan entered first.

"Colonel" Santiago's nose wrinkled ever-so-slightly at the briny
smell in the Unity foil's cabin, but this was a familiar smell to MacMillan
after twelve years in the Royal Navy.  A welcome smell.  She
quickly moved over to the operator's chair and surveyed the control panels.

"It's operational, although in good need of a mechanical overhaul,"
MacMillan announced. "So what did you want to do with it?  Scrap it
for parts?"

Santiago shook her head.

"No.  I want you to get this vessel repaired.  Then I want
you to take command of it and map out the nearby waters.  Requisition
anyone you need for your task.  Oh, and welcome to the Junta."

MacMillan's eyes widened at that.  Although she'd had a military
background in the once-proud Royal Navy of England, she'd never held an
independent command of her own on Planet.

"I'm flattered.  Why?"

"This is, in many ways, a water planet," Santiago explained. 
"Although all our resources are focused on exploring this land mass, one
day we will need a naval presence - if only to keep our shores our own. 
And you're the best naval officer I've got.  Besides, Allardyce recommended
you."

The flagship cruiser Patroklus rode a particularly large swell, and
MacMillan's dreams shifted.

"There's the beacon, Captain."  Her crewman pointed out the
semi-submerged Unity pod just ahead.  Old Earth's planners had designed
the Unity's components well; the supply beacons had been durable and, as
it turned out, possessed a positive buoyancy.  Already MacMillan's
foil - grandly named "Victorious" - had retrieved a valuable network node
for the Spartan cause the previous year.  So the Junta had widened
their search, even committing resources to build subsequent foils. 
The contents of the few-and-far between pods were too valuable to ignore. 
Especially if anyone else was looking for them.

MacMillan felt a sudden stab of anxiety.  Something was wrong. 
Something terrible.

She shook her head, startled by the sudden feeling of fear. 
What the hell?  Then she noted the suddenly pale face of her lookout,
his eyes wide, sweat suddenly springing from the Spartan's brow. 
And then she knew.

"Pull back!  Engines full reverse,"  MacMillan yelled,
as the nauseating fear choked her words.  There was no response; evidentially
the engineer was equally overcome by the unexpected psychic attack. 
Spartan patrols had encountered mindworm boils a few times before; some
had even survived, albeit with terrible casualties.  But here? 
At sea?  How was this possible?

She saw the answer to her question as the smooth, slithering mass
of seaborne worms chittered hungrily, floating along in some sort of colony. 
There had to be thousands of the disgusting creatures entwined around each
other, trapping air beneath and within their coils.  The seaborne
boil wriggled towards Victorious with unbelievable speed, somehow maintaining
its cohesiveness as it came.

The lookout was already firing his shredder into the mass, but that
was purely instinct; the needles had no visible effect.  MacMillan
turned and ran towards the back of the Unity foil, as one by one her crew
began to scream; some fired randomly, others curled into fetal balls. 
The psychic claws were reaching for her now....

And then she reached the fuel cage.  Quickly, she unlatched
the cage, and with desperate strength rolled the fuel barrels into the
water.  Some of the worms were slithering onto the deck, now, but
most of them had surrounded the tiny craft.  MacMillan drew her own
shredder and fired, not at the worms but at the bobbing fuel canisters.

Although she hadn't been conscious much after that, they later told
her that she'd saved the ship, even if half her face had been burned off.

Admiral MacMillan awoke with a start, her hands flying to her face,
and once again felt the comforting touch of normal flesh, regenerated a
dozen times now since those early days.  The old dream....

Her commlink chimed, and Captain Rahman's voice came through.

"Admiral, we're leaving the extreme range of Spartan air cover," her
subordinate informed her.

"I'll be right up," MacMillan acknowledged, and stepped over to her
dresser mirror to inspect her appearance.  Rank had its privileges;
MacMillan's stateroom was a full eight-by-eight cubicle, downright luxurious
by Spartan standards.  Of course, the cruiser flagship displaced eighty
times as much as the cramped Victorious, retired long ago.  She'd
easily outlasted her first Planet command, and looked little older than
she'd been when the Unity cryocell had closed in on her.  Sharp features,
but still the attractive blue-eyed blonde, now physically in her mid-thirties. 
Nice to see after she'd once burned half her face off....

"Admiral on the bridge," the ensign announced as MacMillan entered.

"As you were," MacMillan acknowledged.  She'd never had much use
for the military formality that was so in vogue these days - but these
youngsters couldn't remember a time when Sparta hadn't been a rigidly militaristic
society.  It hadn't been always that way, she remembered.  Scott
Allardyce and Gavin Burge had never been sticklers for formality the way
Honshu and the new up-and-comers were.  The man made Santiago herself
look like a left-wing radical.  One of the reasons why MacMillan had
tipped the Junta vote against him; that, and Allardyce had asked her. 
They'd been friends; more than friends, once.

Which was one reason why she'd been prepared to help oust Santiago,
at first.  Scott Allardyce had been MacMillan's patron and sponsor
into the Junta; this despite his constant amusement on how an Irish-Scotswoman
had ended up as a frigate captain in His Majesty's Royal Navy.  Of
course, heritage aside, she'd been born and raised in the United Kingdom,
and unlike Free Scotland, Great Britain maintained a credible navy. 
One that MacMillan had loved and served well, before Unity. 
And so she'd been, by default, one of the finest naval strategists and
tacticians on Planet.

However, MacMillan had never commanded - or desired - the sort of personal
following that Honshu or Allardyce or Atriedes did.  She'd never had
the same ambition or desire for power.  Despite her military rank,
her greatest contributions to the Junta's debates had been in the civilian
domain.   For one, she'd actively championed and orchestrated
a program of building sea formers and supply foils, and the extensive kelp
farms and fisheries off the Spartan coasts had earned her the nickname
"Trawler" .  She'd frequently had to fight with the Junta for the
necessary resources, for too many of the generals were focused on military
growth, even at the expense of basic infrastructure and industry. 
And so she'd had to become more politically aware to win these turf wars. 
Which had led to some interesting revelations into the power dynamics of
the Junta.

When Honshu had first made his pitch to the dissidents in his bid to
oust Santiago, he'd practically accused her of "selling out" to politics,
at the expense of "true" Spartan ideals.  Whatever the hell those
were.  MacMillan's first instinct had been to laugh derisively,
although her political acumen had fortunately allowed her to maintain a
poker face.  Corazon sell out?  For politics?  Hell,
she hardly knew the meaning of the word.  And sell out to whom? 
Not the U.N. - Santiago had little but contempt for Lal and his Charter. 
Morgan?  Certainly Sparta did trade with the mogul, and likely more
to his profit than to theirs, but MacMillan hadn't seen Honshu offering
to give up his longevity treatments in deference to his precious principles. 
And whatever Sparta was becoming as a nation was far less dependent
upon Corazon Santiago than the collective direction of the Junta; for the
truth was that Corazon was bored with civil administration, and spent far
more time honing the military.  She still remained a popular figure
to the populace, though; perhaps because she was known to be apart
and above the Junta's factionalism.

MacMillan knew this, and to hear Honshu's outraged accusations had left
her privately concluding that either he was a total political idiot, or
a very clever politician after all.  Since she'd never seen Honshu
as stupid in any other arena, MacMillan had astutely measured him to be
the latter - even if many of the other generals had fallen for his act. 
Or perhaps they, like herself, had reasons to want to see Santiago ousted. 
MacMillan was at least honest with herself; she'd still been seriously
pissed off at her old mentor's expulsion from the Junta, and had been prepared
to punish Santiago for acceding to Scott's dismissal.  Even if it
meant going along with Honshu.

But barely a week before the crucial vote, Scott had contacted her personally
and asked her to support Corazon.

"Of course I'm still angry, Pat.  And I'll never forgive Corazon
for letting Ashandii  get loose.  But I'm also a pragmatist. 
If the Federation falls to the aliens, the rest of the Axis - and humanity
- may not be far behind.  And since that includes you and me, Sparta
had better not fall.  Which means I'd rather have Santiago
calling the shots than Honshu."

And so with that succinct piece of wisdom, MacMillan and some of the
others had switched their support from Honshu to Santiago.  Which
brought her back to where she was now.

The Spartan Navy was at full stop in a circular formation around Patroklus;
the most powerful navy on Planet was awaiting her orders.  Well,
the second-most powerful navy, MacMillan privately acknowledged. 
The Hiverian navy was larger, just as well trained, and better equipped
with the coordination of their Maritime Control Centre.  It was inevitable,
MacMillan supposed; with the introduction of air power, the Spartan Navy
had been relegated to a distinctly second-class priority.

In fact, this could well be our last mission ever.

"Ops plan Alpha," MacMillan ordered her chief of staff, and Captain
Rahman relayed her instructions to the fleet.  The tactical holo blinked
and went from green to blue, indicating that the plot was now based on
Patroklus' passive sensor arrays rather than the usual active sensors. 
Everywhere in the fleet, other ships' holos would be doing the same as
the formation contracted in upon itself and began to proceed at half speed.

Contrary to conventional doctrine, MacMillan was deploying none
of her screen as scouts.  That, plus deactivating her active sensors
and reducing engine rotations, would make her fleet very hard to detect. 
Of course, that also meant that she would have very little warning
if she encountered hostile vessels.  It was the naval equivalent of
turning off one's headlights and coasting downhill in the middle of the
night.  A risk.  But a calculated risk.

MacMillan's orders were to avoid Yang's navy at all costs.  Not
that she was afraid of the Hiverian fleet, or that she didn't think she
could beat any task force she ran across; but it would advertise her presence,
and merely sinking enemy ships was not her strategic objective.  Instead,
they were headed for the Usurper's continent.

MacMillan had been less than thrilled when Santiago had given her the
objective.  It was, at best, a long shot - to be able to travel that
distance undetected, find and bombard shore facilities, and survive any
remaining local Usurper air presence (it was the last one that made MacMillan
the most nervous).  But she'd been forced to agree with Santiago's
thinking; a powerful navy that remained in port while the homeland was
being invaded might as well be sunk already.  Just like what happened
to Hitler's Kreigsmarine in old Earth's second world war.  Besides,
MacMillan was Spartan.  If she was going to go down, she'd rather
go down fighting than wait for her ships to be sunk in port.

---

Hiverean Resonance Fleet Foil Li Min

"There it is again, Sir."

"I see it, Jerome.  Any ID from CinC yet?"  Captain Walters
joined his tactical officer at the holodisplay, where the flickering amber
of a tentative contact displayed itself at the extreme edge of sensor range.

"No, sir.  If there's something out there, it's under total
EmCon.  Or maybe a wandering Isle?"

"Hmmn."  Walters considered the possibilities.  If it was
an Isle, then with the resonance weaponry that Li Min carried, the
odds were with him if he attacked.  And a harvest of Planetpearls
would serve the energy-starved Human Hive well.  Not to mention doing
no harm to Walters' career.

"Activate data link to the MCC, and let's approach.  But cautiously,
Tung, very cautiously."  Walters made his decision and the Li Min
responded to his commands.

Hiverean Resonance Fleet Flagship Enlightenment

"Admiral, the Li Min has departed from station and has activated
the MCC link," Commander Covelia announced.

Admiral Zhu Lai Hy turned in his command chair to face his operations
officer.  He didn't bother to demand further elaboration; already,
the talented young woman was updating the master plot and downloading data
from the Maritime Control Centre.

"No communications other than the out-of-band MCC signal.  But
they've shut down their active sensors and diverged from their patrol pattern. 
I'm detecting increased data download from the MCC; it looks like they're
looking for something and are using the MCC's passive buoys to do it. 
Which means it's something they don't want looking for them."

Covelia studied the MCC data for a minute, analyzing the data.

"MCC reports a large wake disturbance, headed South by Southeast., speed
42 knots.   Data's too uncertain to give a more accurate analysis."

"A convoy?"  Admiral Hy asked.

Covelia shook her head thoughtfully.

"Maybe, but there's nothing to head towards on that bearing.  Unless
they're taking evasive action, meaning  that they've detected Li
Min, and he's under heavy stealth himself.  Plus, if they did
detect him, they'd probably attack.  No, I think this is a Spartan
task force."

"And our nearest fleet division is..."  Hy prompted.

"We've got a major concentration in 3rd Fleet, Ulrik Svensgaard commanding
fleet flagship Crusty Barnacle."  Covelia reported, and Hy
winced.

Commander Covelia noted Hy's expression and felt an answering distaste. 
Other members of the command crew might've interpreted the expression as
an understandable disgust for the undisciplined mob of... pirates
that followed Svensgaard; opportunists rather than Champions of the People
like themselves.  But Covelia was the only member of Hy's staff to
know the truth, that Ulrik Svensgaard was long dead, and his shape worn
by none other than Haraad Ashandii himself.

Zhu Lai Hy privately despised Ashandii, and would've privately toasted
his forcible and ignominious flight from the Circle's Covert Ops base months
previous, had such an action not been contrary to the philosophy of the
group.  Hy also didn't underestimate Ashandii, and he did fear the
vicious empath, but only in the strictly professional manner that he would've
feared a rabid mindworm boil .  The fact that Ashandii - in the role
of Svensgaard - was nominally under his command only worsened things. 
Hy was one of the rising stars of Yang's cabinet, and one of the very few
who had any inkling of his master's true feelings towards the Manifold
Usurpers.  He was also fanatically loyal to the Chairman and his Vision,
which was the real reason Hy hated Ashandii, for he knew well that
the empath's devotion to that enlightened vision of true egalitarianism 
was... lacking, to say the least.  But like the Usurpers, Ashandii
was useful to Yang, and therefore had to be tolerated.  As
well as handled very carefully.

"Record message to 3rd Fleet Command," Hy ordered, refusing to refer
to the most un-Hiverian ship designation Crusty Barnacle.

"Patrol Foil Li Min tracking probable contact, possible Spartan
task group.  Investigate and, if appropriate, engage."  There. 
That gave the initiative over to Ashandii, as the latter would've demanded. 
Meanwhile....

"Commander Covelia.  Bring the Fleet about, project course towards
probable intercept between 3rd Fleet and the unidentified contact." 
Hy ordered.

The mighty resonance fleet started to come about, and Covelia stepped
close to her superiour's command chair.

"He'll be angry if he senses that you are monitoring him." 
Covelia murmured quietly, but the warning was sincere.

Hy shrugged his broad shoulders almost imperceptibly, and Covelia simply
nodded and stepped back, privately impressed by Hy's courage.

I fulfill the will of the Chairman, Hy thought.  Yes, he
feared Ashandii.  But not nearly as much as he did Sheng-Ji Yang.

 

[Hydro]

Near Sparta Command

Submind Two paused. The air was ripe with smells, and they told him much about where he was and the state of the world around him. Sometimes the smells and tastes told him even more than when he used his other primary senses, sight and sound.

Open left, lower port. Intake air.

In a moment a diagnostic flashed, and Submind Two digested it. Most of the information was simply a scroll of numbers, including the partial pressure of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and inert gasses. This information, however, was not what interested Submind Two since the data synthesis was part of a simple routine required by protocol that took a fraction of a second. He preformed a threat analysis on the data with negative results, so precautionary measures were not needed, at least not now.

Open left, lower port. Intake.

Bypass: diagnostic. Reroute: sensory.

A flood of feelings pulsed through Submind Two. He felt the warmth of the air instead of simply knowing what the temperature was. Fungal spoors washed in, creating an earthy aroma, complete with a promise of new life. Tasting them, he could see their essence, and he knew what they were. This one was a lowly decomposer, designed to digest the wastes of particular subspecies of a brachial forest fungi. Another was beginning a transmutation into a photosynthesis-adept symbiotic that was ready to bond with any of 50 or more freshwater algae. The most common, and Submind Two’s favorite, was the simple fungal mat spoor, which was omnipresent and versatile, and so critical for the interdependent fungal ecosystem, and to the health and renewal of the planet-wide neural net. It had a vaguely metallic taste, something like that of heated copper, which he found enticing. Submind was careful, though. Some of the spoors knew him and his kind, and they reacted by attacking, subverting, and consuming. He understood these well, and he also knew to be wary. Manifold Six, like all organisms, was always evolving, especially at the lowest level where most of its defenses lay. These low-level hunter-killer spoors had to be absorbed quickly, or cauterized, if he could, since an infection of biophage fungi was a serious and potentially fatal problem. Indeed, any awakening of Manifold Six’s intrinsic immune response was dangerous. Submind understood that he was not of Manifold, that it might see him as a threat, and that it would always be alien to him. Still, it did provide a tasty selection of smells and tastes. The risk was small, but it was worth it.

Submind Two knew most of the native smells and tastes on Manifold Six, but some smells were new and alien, and potentially interesting. Submind Two was not familiar with these new flavors, nor their ilk or what kind or organism they represented. Care had to be taken with these. A smattering of these new smells was fungal spoors, but some were different, more primitive. Haphazard. Their signature was less clear, and he could taste their aspects, even if he couldn’t fully understand their place or their nature. As he consumed them he examined their coding. They were not Progenitor. Each was alien. While each had its function, the spoors did not have a place that Submind Two could perceive. These were newcomers to Manifold Six, but Submind had no doubt that the Manifold would put them to work by either adopting or adapting them. One showed an interesting adaptation that allowed it to digest granitic rock, first digesting down soft micas, then the alkali feldspars, and breaking them down ever so slowly into a useful soil. Another was, evidently, a parasite of some kind, and Submind could not divine its function. Perhaps it was designed to attack an alien organism? It was hard to tell. Submind filed this one away for later analysis instead of tasting, and destroying, it. A few even showed signs of modification by Manifold 6 since snippets of its coding were similar to those of the fungalnet. These tasted more…right.

He knew that he did not smell the air, of course, but rather that he smelled and tasted what the air contained. As Submind sampled the air other smells intruded. Some of the airborne particles were so large that he found it amazing that they were able to travel by air at all. But, that shouldn’t be too surprising since pulverized rocksoil, and other organic debris, were all aloft in the lower atmosphere to ionosphere as part of the ever-changing ecosystem. Some of these particles were not airborne detritus, and these held the germ of life that were different and potentially more virulent than the fungal spoors he knew; these were new to Submind Two. Submind Two almost always recoiled as he tasted and assessed their potential. They tasted bitter, and they came near to overpowering his senses with a strong acrid aftertaste that he felt had to be purged. Still, he continued since Submind was curious – he wanted to know what they were, and what they meant. As he tasted he examined these new aspects to saw what was written in their code. These were alien life forms that could only be at odds with the carefully tailored, self-regulating ecosystem of Manifold Six. The form of these was not clear, since the coding was alien to him. This one seemed to be a taller branching sessile life form, and another the embryonic larvae of a winged creature. What kind of branching life form? What niche did the winged creature play? Submind Two didn’t know. Some interesting bacteria were riding dormant on some dust, and Submind was not sure if they were a threat or not. Each of these new forms promised a violent assault on his sense of place and function, for these alien constituents were at war with the fungalnet and its multitude of forms. Each was a pioneer and a colonizer, destined to grow and displace, or be displaced, almost like an infection. The balance might be upset. However interesting these new invading lifeforms might be they tasted wrong.

Other smells were routine. The air was full of wisps of burning organic matter, some from fungus but others that were clearly from the alien organisms. Submind Two had gotten used to these smells in the last few weeks and he had learned to classify objects by their residual chemical signature, and he used deductions based on smells and direct observations to correlate their chemical signature to purposes and causes. Most of these smells were the smells of war, and the destruction that inevitably followed. There was much to be learned, subtle and nuanced, or functionally useless but interesting. For instance, the smell generated during destruction caused by alien weaponry was due to heat, burning, and the generation of airborne fused silicates and partially combusted carbon-based organics. Progenitor weaponry, by contrast, left little signature since most was based controlled singularities, which simply obliterated matter, letting the resulting energy release blow apart the remains of the target. This was certainly interesting, but Submind Two could not figure out a way to use this in any practical way since it was functionally unimportant to know who destroyed what.

Most reassuring was the faint odor of ancient metal from him and his companions. Battle armor gave off few ions, and Submind Two was especially sensitized to the aroma of these rare atoms of neutronium that escaped to mark their passing. Each of his companions had a different flavor, too, and each flavor was subtle. The taste of companion L23-8 was heavily influenced by her ancient battle damage. Her rear armor belt was melted and was partially blasted away, and the minimal maintenance subsystems no longer functioned in those areas. Some of these components had decayed over time, and foreign debris had built up in and under the pocked armor and within her dead subsystems. She smelled of decay and earth. It was not an unpleasant smell, by any means; it was simply her smell. By comparison, companion 4-M33 smelled new. He had been constructed just before the last Flowering, and he had never seen combat before he had been reprogrammed here on Manifold 6. He glistened in the sunlight, and he pulsed a little faster than the rest, his multi-articulated legs gliding surely over the alien built road. Submind Two could see him actively collecting data on all that was around him, using sensors for optics and resonance fields, sucking in data in almost unrestricted torrents. He was not sampling the air, Submind noted with some small satisfaction, since he did not, evidently, think it important. Time would teach him wisdom, he reflected. Still, Submind could understand his enthusiasm since he retained a few of his memories from his first activation, the few that had not been purged or written over during subsequent reprogramming over the millennia. Everything was fresh to 4-M33, and he had been the most eager of the companions during their uploading. Undoubtedly 4-M33 and all of his subminds were intact, Submind Two thought wistfully. Several of his had perished long ago. Submind Two understood this, and he was not really bothered by it, at least not too much. He was performing his function, and he would continue to do so until his neutronium armor ablated and all his subsystems or subminds failed. He had served well for over 8,000 solar cycles, and he would continue to perform his functions as long as he was able. He had the ongoing satisfaction that he had performed his duty, and what happened after that was not relevant.

A sound intruded on Submind Two’s tasting. A dull booming echoed up the hillside, and its distant shock wave was noticeable through the ground, and later in the intergrown fungus and alien plants as they shook ever so slightly.

The time of battle was nearing.

Submind Two spied about like 4-M33, piercing his surroundings with both resonance and photon-based visualization systems to verify that there were no threats in the immediate area, for the moment, at least. All that he detected nearby were his companions, although he knew his target was not too far distant. He did not need to view a map, or interrogate one of his subminds. He knew his quarry, its disposition, and his task.

Submind One? he queried.

No response. His internal subsystems that had served Submind One were quiet, and the area that had been Submind One was still dead.

Submind Two had not expected a response, but he was duty bound to try before the start of battle. That particular part of him had been dead for over two millennia, killed in a battle with the Seeker Faction on an asteroid base near Manifold Three. Submind One had been his better part, the superior mind, and he had been its slave, not unlike the lesser subminds that now obeyed his commands. All his efforts to repair and renew his damaged person had failed, and he could not get past a permanent block that inhibited him. His maintenance subroutines were still active, but they only served the functioning portions of his being. Active systems were renewed and rejuvenated; otherwise he would have fallen into disrepair ages ago. Not for the first time Submind Two longed for the return of his regenerator, or the healing touch of a repair bay. He knew he was not likely to experience either, since these Progenitors lacked the ability to repair, much less create, his kind. They had lost so much in the last Flowering, which had been particularly severe. Submind Two did not understand the Flowering, and he felt no compulsion to understand, but he did know that it was a natural part of the Progenitor culture. Even though the repair bays and the technology that allowed them to function were lost, Submind Two still could have repaired himself with his internal regenerator. Unfortunately, he and all his ilk’s regenerators had been deactivated so long ago as punishment after some of his companions had gone rogue during the Moon Rebellion. The Progenitors didn’t take kindly to betrayal by their tools, and so they had sentenced him and his companions to non-renewal, and death by degradation, or destruction in combat. They would no longer suffer semi-independence by their tools of mass destruction.

Still, longing for contact with Submind One was not a productive use of time, even if it would be reassuring to take commands from Submind One again. Submind Two knew he was only a little less capable, and he would do as he was commanded since his orders were quite clear.

His task, and the task of his companions, was simple: exterminate the Invader aliens. His target was ahead of him: the Invader city called Sparta Command.

Submind Two proceeded diligently forward. A Battle Ogre Mark II knows his duty.

[Hydro]

Velvetgrass Point

S'clit took up her position behind the fragment of a building. It was tall, sinuous, and a dark brownish gray with pleasant greenish streaks running down the side, along with an impressive pile of rubble along its flanks. Based on what was left it was impossible to determine what it might have been, only that it was one of a seemingly endless network of buildings throughout the city, each of which had to be captured and purged. The center of the structure was pillar-like, and it looked suspiciously organic, as did the fragments of 'walls' that draped to the left and right of the trunk. Was it a plant? She really couldn't tell until she got closer and examined it more closely, but right now she was concentrating on not being eviscerated, incinerated, or otherwise mangled by the increasingly desperate defensive fire coming from the ruined outskirts of the Invader holding. It didn't really matter if it was a plant or wall as long as she could use it as cover, and maybe as a rallying point for the continued Progenitor thrust into the heart of the city.

Some of the scree to her left moved and there was the unmistakable sound of her vatmate's as they clawed and bounded up behind her, taking up positions on the detritus slope. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… she counted to herself as she scanned the area for threats. After a few minutes she knew her mates were all here, or the remains of her squad were here. Two had fallen a week ago during the initial assault, which had been headlong and spirited. After a week of pounding by artillery she was confident that the Invader defenders were surely weakened or destroyed. Common wisdom had it that it would be a quick and glorious Progenitor victory, like those on the continent of the militant Invaders that called themselves the Spartans. After all, this group's pathetic air force had been long since eliminated and their Invader ally Yang, who ruled the skies with his pathetic excuses for aircraft. Any one of the Progenitor gnats could have taken on five of their best and still won, it was said. Pathetic as they were, they were more than sufficient to sweep the skies of this supposedly weak and pacifistic Invader faction.

Then, the allied Invader aircraft had ceased their bombing runs and they had retreated en-masse. The Invader ally shock troops likewise pulled back. S'clit remembered puffing up, her outer chitin expanding in kind and her thin sub-carapace flushing green with delight. They are cowards, she remembered thinking, and they quail before Progenitor might! Such thoughts were common, and battle fever reach a high pitch. The attack was started!

Now, as she waited in the ruins weeks later, S'clit resonated sourly to herself. They hadn't counted on there being so many of the Invaders to kill. As soon as they slaughtered one pathetic band of defenders, another rose in its place. Some of them were armed with mere combustion projectiles! Such weapons would not do more than inconvenience their assault, but it did slow it down enormously. So now here she was, the Progenitor warrior, slogging her way through the ruins of the eastern half of the damnable tree town, only a quarter of the way toward their goal of purging the city of its Invader vermin.

S'clit felt a third degree resonance from her rear guard, indicating that everything was in order, and that none of her warriors required medical aid, nourishment, or elimination rights.

She trilled, adding a dissident harmonic, and waved her quantum laser rifle to the right side of the ruined wall, indicating their direction of attack. Moments later she sprinted forward, followed by her dutiful vatmates. Small arms fire from the city defenders started at once as they came into the open, most of it lancing harmlessly into the rubble. Occasionally some ordinance found its mark, but it left nothing more than a small scorch mark on their resonance armor.

S'clit was concentrating too hard on her objective, which was the next pile of rubble just ahead of her, to be much more than annoyed. Demolished buildings stood, or partially stood, on all sides and she and her squad were running through one of the only streets in this area that was not choked with debris. She felt exposed and vulnerable, but then she always felt exposed and vulnerable - if she didn't feel that way then she knew she would be stupid, and probably dead, since these Invaders were tricky, and cowards to boot. That was a dangerous combination. They had proven that over and over again - they preferred tricks to honorable, open combat.

Boom…CRASH

She could see and feel the explosion, and a portion of a tower ahead of her started to slide toward them and to the ground, almost as if in slow motion. Although the small arms fire could not hurt her, she knew for a fact that uncounted tons of dead mass would render her to little more than crunchy green pulp. Instinctively she pivoted away from the sound and the falling building, careening to the right and toward another building fragment, and the cover it would provide.

BooMMMM!

This explosion was much closer, and S'clit felt the impact of dust, mortar, and small shards of steel on her face and armor, the force of which drove her backward for a moment. She stopped what was left of her sprint, which had been slowed considerably by the impact of all the debris. Behind her she could feel the alarmed, involuntary resonance of vatmates as they tried to stop, cutting their forward momentum as their RNA-training had taught them. In a split second were huddled together in a defensive knot, rifles pointed outward.

BOOM, CraaaaaCK

Within a second S'clit heard the long, drawn-out crackling sound and saw movement above her, a shadow that partially obscured the vague sunlight that permeated the smoke filled ruins.

She looked up toward the shadow. A tree is falling was her first thought as she saw the tall, formerly stately plant-like pillar building crash toward the ground, and them.

A moment later she realized what was happening. She reacted instantly, as did her mates, and they scattered.

I wandered into a kill zone, she thought angrily, and the falling Gaian tower crushed her and her squad an instant later.

The rubble settled, and there was relative silence in this isolated section of Velvetgrass Point. Then there were weak human cheers from throughout the ruins, particularly from the impromptu demolition charge team that had choreographed the explosions.

It was a small victory for the Gaians. There were so few these days, and a rare victory is sweet indeed.

[Googlie]

Temple of Chiron

The Hive military honor guard, with General Peake in their midst, stood to attention as the three choppers in Morgan insignia settled on to the small landing strip.

As the whine of the rotors died to a low hum, he stepped in front of the guard to welcome Paula Forbes and her news crew. He was looking forward to meeting the renowned news anchorwoman, although he might have wished for better circumstances.

He saw the diminutive redhead emerge, closely followed by a larger man who carried with him an air of command and aloofness.

Cyrus Peake shivered as though an icy cold wave had suddenly washed over him, engulfing his mind, and in a flash he knew the man.

Haraad Ashaandi.

He stepped in front of Paula, and confronted Peake.

"The children? They are safe? You have called off the search for them?"

Peake nodded .

"Yes. Those were the instructions I received. They are making their way to the northern coast where they will be picked up.. Now we don't have much time for the news shoot - I'll have my Colonel co-ordinate with Ms Forbes. If you would care to accompany me, Sir, we can go to our modest Command Center."

Ashaandi shook his head.

"No, I'd rather wander around and take stock of things. Tell Paula I'll come looking for her in a few hours."

Cyrus nodded, and as Ashaandi wandered off, he was aware of Colonel Seng Hsui's eyes burning into him.

"Yes? What is it Colonel?" he asked.

Hsui was looking at him strangely.

"Why have you just allowed that operative to wander over to the detention pens unaccompanied? I thought we'd agreed that this would be a supervised evacuation? We can't have just anybody wandering around the base."

"Ah, my dear Colonel. That wasn't just 'anyone.' That was the redoubtable Haraad Ashaandi, the confidante of our Chairman, and the master of the Circle."

"Bollocks" said Hsui to the astonished Peake.

"What?" he sputtered.

"That was just an empath. A strong compellor, I suspect. Projecting, I see now, to you, that he was Ashaandi."

"What do you mean?" Cyrus asked.

"I've had the neural augmentation treatment - part of the drop training in the Bioenhancement Center. I sensed the vibes and activated the blockers. I couldn't for the life of me understand why you were groveling before him like you were. Didn't know who you thought he was."

"Hmmm," Peake mumbled. "I wonder why he wanted me to think he was Ashaandi?"

************************************************

Miles Cavanaugh moved over to the holding pens where the citizenry of Temple of Chiron were confined. As he approached, he sent out an advance empath wave, a sort of broadband probe, which would be picked up and recognized for what it was by any developed – or even latent – empaths. He was rewarded by a dozen recognition acceptances – responses to his faint probe, to whom he empathed ‘meet me by the main gate.’

This was going to be the hardest part. Convincing this group of Gaians that they should be saved, while their friends – and in some cases their families – were denied salvation and would be left to the whims of the Aliens or the protection of the Hive military.

The scope of the rescue was limited. The three choppers could evacuate some 30 in total, and the discussion around Allardyce’s holotable had been the criteria that would determine who would be chosen.

It had been Allardyce himself who had made the final decision.

“The Talents and the empaths, then any children not on the field trip,” he had said. And so the planning had begun.

Miles met them at the gate to the enclave. They shrunk back at the sight of him – a tall, black-cloaked figure, and as they heard the guards muttering:

“’Strewth, it’s Ashaandi himself. “What’s the Circle doing here?”

He aimed a mild admonitory mental jolt their way, and was pleased to see them shudder inwardly and avert their eyes, allowing him to pass right to the gate itself.

He ran a quick interrogative scan, searching for Brooke Ward, the Garrison Commander, and was mildly perturbed that he didn’t immediately detect her presence. But he did detect a strong counter probe aimed his way.

From a civilian, hovering around the edges of the crowd.

He singled out the man – one who looked old, as some did, who eschewed the rejuvenation procedures.

Narrowing his focus, he sent out a welcome, adding:

‘I am not what I seem. The guards think I am of the infamous Circle, and we must maintain that appearance. But I need to speak with Brooke Ward.’

The empathed reply stunned him

‘Alas, it is not possible. She was taken earlier today by the Progenitors. It seems that she is to be the next feast delicacy.’

Miles shuddered. He’d been briefed, of course, by Allardyce on the bizarre practices of the Aliens of eating their conquered enemies, and though it barbaric, not at all fitting for an advanced starfaring race. But he also knew that they had regressed significantly during their dark ages after The Flowering.

What perturbed him more, though, was the calm acceptance by the Gaians, almost as if they had conceded the inevitable.

Well, his instructions had been clear, and he meant to succeed.

Drawing closer, he spoke for the first time:

“Gather round. I need your help to save yourselves.

We ostensibly are a Morgan News crew here by tripartite negotiations between the Hive leadership, the Progenitors, and the Axis leadership. The intent is to demonstrate that the Aliens are not the barbaric animals that they are commonly portrayed to be, and that the Hive are themselves not inhuman monsters. Crews will be set up to vidshoot, and you will go through your usual routines of the day. At the end of the day we’ll pack up and leave.

“That’s what the schedule calls for.

“Except we will vary the procedure and leave with you, and I need the help of those empaths among you to strengthen my mindlock on the guards to allow us all to board the choppers and leave.”

“That will take some time”, one interjected. “We are over 2000 in number, and I saw only 3 machines. Many trips will be necessary.”

Miles looked at her.

“We are not evacuating the whole base. Just you two dozen or so. The drones are in no danger, as the Usurpers do not consider them to be ‘conquered’, merely subjugated.

“But our job will be harder, and I may need to call on your empath talents more than I’d planned. We need to get Commander Ward back from the Aliens.

“So here’s what we’ll do………”

***********************************************

Paula was the first to sense it. A tremor of excitement running through the ranks of the Progenitors, a subtle stiffening of their bearing, and some out-of-character squeaks and squeals of resonance passing back and forth among them.

Curious, she waylaid General Peake to ask what was happening.

He gave her a perturbed look.

“I don’t like it, Ms Forbes. I understand that Conqueror Marr himself is on his way here. Apparently the forces commander has made some significant discovery over at the ruins that is bringing him hotfoot here.”

Paula’s news instincts took over.

“Hmm – a discovery. I wonder if we can interview them and find out more. How well do you get along with the Commander?”

Peake chuckled.

“Well, we have had our run-ins, but I’d say pretty well, considering.”

Just then he stiffened, as he saw approaching the black-cloaked figure of the Circle’s master.

“It’s not Ashaandi – just some Spartan masquerading as him” he fought to tell himself, but even as he did, he felt his resolve weakening.

“Seng must be wrong,” he thought. “It is Ashaandi. I’ve met him before, while in training, and I’ve seen him at the Chairman’s side.”

He quailed as Ashaandi stopped in front of him, and fixed a soul-searching, implacable stare at him.

“You have not kept your part of the bargain,” Miles hissed. “The Garrison Commander has been taken for one of their ‘ritual feasts’. You will arrange for her release – or you will join her as a delicacy.”

The visibly shaking Peake stuttered:

“But I am not sure we can. I suspect that her being taken for the feast – as the ranking officer - is to do with the arrival of Conqueror Marr himself.”

Miles started.

“Marr is coming here?” he asked.

“On his way,” Peake replied.

“Excellent, then,” Miles forced himself to say, yet feeling sick within. “Now please excuse us, General. I need to co-ordinate some arrangements with Ms Forbes, here. Perhaps you can ascertain the whereabouts of Commander Ward, and devise a rescue plan.”

Cyrus Peake nodded, relieved, and turned away to search for Colonel Hsui.

Miles turned to Paula.

“I need help,” he said simply. “I’m getting out of my depth. How soon could you get the Morgan Covert Ops top guns here? Like Paul Andreas. His people?”

“Don’t know. I’ll find out,” she replied.

[Googlie]

Due East of Temple of Chiron

The ageing Unity Rover crested the small summit and paused, as if deciding whether to run full tilt for the beach below, or more sedately pick its way down through the foliage.

Tony Ward stood in the conning blister and surveyed the path to the beach below. Taking his optic enhancers, he scanned the beach and the shallow ocean shelf, looking for the trawler that was their rescue craft.

Nothing.

Shifting to further out, he thought he could just make out a dark shadow in the trench where the shelf dropped off, and flicked the distortion eliminator in the goggles, smiling as the shape of a submersible slowly came into focus.

"Kool," he muttered. "We've got a sub."

He ducked into the rover to report.

It was stifling hot, with the interior jammed tight with kids of all ages, plus the five adults - Francine and the two aircrews. Their excitement mounted as Tony recounted what was waiting for them.

"Sure it's friendly?" asked Toby, ever the pessimist.

"I have the PK's recognition codes," Conrad muttered. "Give me the commlink and I'll use a line-of-sight laser burst that can't be intercepted."

"Key them in," Julia said. "I'll transmit. Not sure what their reaction might be to you as you are still technically a defector."

"Over to you, then" he said to Julia. "The codes are active."

Julia took the commlink, and went to the conning blister, retracting the canopy so that there would be no diffraction, and fired the short interrogative burst at the sub. The response code flashed back, and she gave Toby the all-clear to take the rover cautiously down the track to the beach.

**********************************************

Aboard The Retribution

"It's them," Commander Sturgeon said. "Surface and launch the dinghies."

Slowly the bulk of the submarine breached the surface, water cascading from her sides as she rose from the depths of the shelf. Sturgeon was in the tower, scanning the beach with his binoculars, watching the rover descend from the hillside above. It stopped, and disgorged its cargo of adults and children.

"Strewth, there's about thirty of them," he breathed to his 2-ic. "We're going to be packed for the trip back to Marine Agency."

The two inflatables were launched, and made their way to the beach, where Potter was gingerly being unloaded from the Rover.

"Signal Allardyce that we have picked them up," Sturgeon commanded of his communications officer. "He wanted to be kept informed."

On the beach, Jennifer shyly took Tony's hand, and looked up at him with adoration.

"You did well," she said. "It was tough marshalling all those kids and keeping the adults in line too. I'm proud of you."

He looked down fondly at her:

"At least we are alive," he said. "At the beginning I wasn't even sure we'd make it. I wonder if Sis is still holding strong?"

*******************************************

Temple of Chiron

Brooke Ward was quietly preparing for death.

Strangely, she was calm. She knew that she had done her best in the defense of Temple, and even as word was reaching the prisoners that Velvetgrass Point was slowly succumbing to the Aliens, she took some pride in being able to negotiate the release of the drones, and in brokering the rescue of the children. She knew that Cyrus Peake struggled with his conscience in the matter of the administration staff and the Talents, and was hopeful that in some way they could be rescued.

But she was earmarked for the next Progenitor feast, and already was undergoing the preparation treatment.

She had taken the routine shower that cleansed the dirt from her body, and next was to be the chemical shower that effectively, with its depilatory properties, would remove all her bodily hair. Then would come a soak in another chemical bath that would dissolve her nails and tenderize her skin - with a self-deprecatory chuckle she thought of it as 'marinating'.

About 2 hours before the feast she would be given the ritual drink - it not only dulled the senses, but apparently made the blood more enjoyable to the alien palate. The early victims had not undergone this rigorous treatment, and consequently the aliens had found their flesh almost unpalatable and the blood bitter.

She wondered if it were worth putting up any resistance. She knew that she would be put in the pit with a youngling for the kill, to give it experience and the morale boost that a first victim would give. Could she fight? She had courage enough, but hand-to-hand combat was not normally a Gaian skill. More Spartan, she thought ruefully. And it wouldn't be hand-to-hand anyway - more hand to claw.

She quieted the fear that was beginning to build, and inwardly repeated the acolyte's prayer. She would return her being to Gaia with dignity, even if her throat were torn by the alien's talons.

She continued her preparations for death.

****************************************

Cyrus Peake and Seng Hsui were earnestly conferring.

"We can't let this happen," the General was saying. "Even if we are victorious, and 'transcend', or whatever, with the Usurpers, it'll be a blight on our consciences for all eternity."

Colonel Seng nodded, recalling the decision he had made at the evacuation of Morgan bank, to spare the Rec Commons and Children's Creche from destruction, to save innocent lives.

"But how can we stop it, Sir?" he asked. "Short of just marching in and taking her, there's not a lot we can do. And I can't see Canla and her troopers willingly just handing Ward over to us. You'd need some sort of mind-control over her to ensure that."

Peake looked at him strangely.

"By Nessus, you've got it," he said, pumping him on the shoulder. "That's just what we'll do. Come on, let's find that Ashaandi impersonator."

Miles was conferring with Paula when they found him.

"Miles, I'm sorry. I've tried all the channels I know. I just can't raise Paul. My guess is that he is on a mission somewhere."

Miles looked dejected, but looked up when he saw Peake and Hsui approaching, immediately going into 'compellor' mode to project the Ashaandi persona.

Peake pushed Hsui forward, grimacing as he did so.

Seng stepped up to Miles.

"You can cut the Ashaandi crap,' he said softly. "I have neural blockers - go ahead - probe me. I can tell you are a Gaian or Spartan operative posing as Ashaandi - and you have convinced all the base here, but I can see through you."

Miles extended a secondary probe and realized that Seng was speaking the truth.

"But we are on your side," Seng continued. "We don't want to see these ritual slayings continue any more than you do. We haven't much time, but here's what we think could be done, if you have the capability."

He outlined the General's plan, and on hearing it, Miles winced.

"Mind-control a base? I've never done that - don't know even if I can. Certainly not with Progenitors around."

"Wouldn't be the whole base," Seng interrupted. "The General and I will give the order to the troops who will obey. You can focus your psi energies on Canla, and we'll arrange the complete evacuation of the administration staff and Talents. After you are gone, we'll 'snap out of it' and resume as we were, but with no one left to feast on.

But we have to do it in the next few hours, before Marr arrives."

Miles groaned inwardly.

"OK. It's our only hope. But I'll need help. You have a detachment ready to take Ward from the aliens, and meanwhile release the prisoners. I'll drop the Ashaandi pretense."

Hsui nodded, and turned back to Peake, whose jaw dropped in amazement as he saw Miles take off his long black cloak to reveal, underneath, the dress uniform of a Spartan General, complete to the ripped slash across the left breast.

"I just hope the Aliens are as gullible," he thought to himself.

*************************************************

Thera Keep

Catherine heard it first, a keening in her mind, a bellow for help:

Merlin.............. Sarah.............. Are you there?

At her side, Ruth stirred, and queried:

"I know that wavelength. Is mommy awake? She knows it too."

Catherine nodded. "I'll go see."

She got up and padded to Shauna's room.

She was sitting up in bed, rubbing her temples.

"I heard - or rather felt something. Someone is in trouble. Very weak message though."

"Come to our room," Catherine offered. "We'll do this better together. Ruth thinks you know the source."

Shauna pulled a gown from the chair by the bed and followed Catherine to the room she shared with Ruth.

They sat in Catherine's bed together, and joined their minds with each other.

Catherine took the lead, the echo of the wavelength still fresh in her mind.

Hello she broadcast.

A faint echo returned.

Who is this? Who have I reached? I am Miles Cavanaugh.

"Ah," Shauna said. "Can you project me?"

Catherine nodded, as did Ruth.

Shauna projected to the others, who amplified it and sent it planetwide: Miles. It's Shauna. Kurt's Shauna. Are you in trouble?

Miles replied: I need booster help badly. Is Ruth with you? Young as she is, maybe she can help.

Shauna looked at Catherine. "He's a friend. A compellor. Obviously needs help. Can I tell him about you?"

"I'll do it myself," Catherine said.

Miles. I'm Catherine Atreus, Ruth's teacher and mentor. Together we can help. What do you need us to do?

Miles explained.

***************************************

Penzance

Merlin.............. Sarah.............. Are you there?

Haraad Ashaandi sat bolt upright in bed, awakened by the psi thunderbolt that coursed through his mind. Tempted to respond, he waited, and listened, and drank in the plan that was being concocted.

He grunted to himself. His impersonation of Ulrik Svensgaard would have to be put on hold for a few hours while he dealt with this threat.

He began to prepare himself for long-range psi combat.

[Googlie]

Temple of Chiron

The empathi gathered round him, a scant half dozen of ill-trained psi latents. Miles focused on them, drawing their minds and thoughts into his, trying to forge a will as one. Drawing strength from some, nurturing a feeble wisp of psi-sentience in another, gradually he melded them into a cohesive whole.

Join us now, Catherine he implored.

Stantos sat in the circle, a young physician at the health center, he had joined the empath club when it formed, and had reveled in elementary mind reading and thought projection. Now he wallowed in the wealth of mindsharing that he was experiencing as the group waited, as one, for the mighty empath that Miles had talked about.

Around them the rest of the freed prisoners milled, trying to get a feeling of what was happening as they anxiously scanned the faces of their colleagues for clues.

Then Stantos thrilled with delight as he felt the tenuous tendril of a thought permeating his being:

I am Catherine.

The simple realization took hold of him, and suddenly he was one with the others. With Miles, the stranger who had come to effect their rescue. With Alicia, the leader of their budding empath group, whose mind he was now intimately connected with on a deeper level than had ever been achieved at their meetings. With Boris, the crusty old agronomist whom everyone thought was a University refugee.

He was snapped back to attention by Miles' forceful thought projection:

General Peake tells me there are but 50 or so Progenitors who we must control - the hardest will probably be their leader, Canla, who has had some psi training. I will deal with her. The rest of you will need to take on some 2 or 3 each, so they will need to be adjacent so that your strength is not diluted. Take your direction from Catherine who will 'zone you'.

Stantos started shivering. This would not be easy.

How will we be able to control them without knowing their thought patterns, or language? he empathed.

A new mind melded with theirs. And a voice in his head spoke, young, full of confidence.

I am Ruth. I know their language and thought patterns. Look on me as the missile and you as the launcher. Project, with Catherine's help, and I will do the rest.

"When do we start?" he asked aloud.

Miles looked over at him.

We start when Colonel Hsui gives the signal that Canla has returned to answer the summons.

They waited.

************************************

Penzance

As did Haraad Ashaandi.

He had prepared as best he could.

The Circle was splintered, after Roze and Paul's attack on their Covert Operations Center, but still had enough functionality to mount a psi offensive, if co-ordinated. And Ashaandi was nothing if not a master co-ordinator. He also had insinuated himself into the circle of minds at Temple of Chiron, where he sat quiescent, largely unobserved, following the strategy as it evolved.

He also followed the tendril backwards from the group to Catherine and Ruth at Thera Keep. Interesting, he thought, that the Aliens had totally ignored them in their advance towards Sparta Command. And they with a monolith adjacent to the Keep that would have provided an instant psi-gate to the heights above Sparta Command.

Then with a start he realized.

Catherine and Ruth must be blocking that knowledge even from the Progenitors themselves. As Judaa Marr and his officers were looking at the holovids and battlemaps, they were just not seeing that monolith - else they would surely have utilized it. Could Catherine be that powerful?

He sensed Miles thought projection:

Here she is now, with Seng. Now

Now he commanded his Circle zealots, and as one they forced the neural block on the group, ramming through their meager defenses, taken by surprise as they were. With a sense of exhilaration Ashaandi triumphed mentally:

You have met your match now, young Catherine. Do not even try to resist.

*************************************

Thera Keep

Catherine threw her hands to her head as the pain lanced through her consciousness, with Ruth and Shauna looking on helplessly.

She writhed on the bed, uttering small groans, and they saw the sweat beading on her forehead. Try as they might, they could not enter her private hell to assuage her mental torment.

"Stay with Miles and his people," hissed Shauna to Ruth. "I'll try and help Catherine."

She put her fingers to Catherine's temples, and willed herself into her mind, recoiling in fear as she confronted the childhood nightmares that Ashaandi had awakened in Catherine. She felt helpless. Yet she was not without skill, some of it taught by Merlin when they were rescuing Kurt.

She began by erecting a small shield - a refuge, that she padded with her own resolve, then gently reached for Catherine's mind to bring it tendril by tendril to the safe place. They fought her, the Circle Adepts. She found herself weakening, losing herself in the maelstrom that was Catherine's demented mind.

She knew that Ruth could help, but Ruth had her hands full with Miles and his group halfway across Planet.

"Dear God, help me," she breathed.

Then he was there, by her side. As if they were fighting the dragon. The imagery was so intense she almost saw it literally. The damsel and the knight. Lance ready and sword sheathed, to hand.

Merlin she cried

Sorry I was delayed came the thought to her mind, as a stronger will reinforced her, drawing her back from the abyss. Got a little tied up on other things, but I was following as best I could. What have we here? Ah, Haraad no doubt.

Shauna sensed the pang of fear that coursed through Merlin as he confronted his erstwhile master.

Nevertheless she felt comforted. Catherine would be okay, with her and Merlin's help. She stole a glance at her daughter to see how Ruth was doing. Her small face was screwed up in intense concentration, eyes closed, her mouth moving wordlessly. Her body was full of tension, and sweat was pouring from her too, but occasionally her frown would break into a semblance of a grin, even a chuckle, so Shauna guessed she was coping just fine. She hoped so, anyway.

******************************************

Temple of Chiron

Miles was standing in front of Canla, looking up at the alien. Although tall, she towered over him, glowering down her snout at him.

His mind held hers like a vise.

You will release the human prisoner Ward immediately he commanded if you value your own life. We have taken control of this base and you are a prisoner of war. You can, however, continue your stochastic studies if you agree to our terms. But first you must release the prisoner.

Canla looked around.

Hivean troops, with weapons at the ready were milling around. She even saw one or two of her own troopers mingling with the Hive soldiers, seemingly having joined them. She recognized her situation as hopeless.

Turning to her aide, she barked "Release the prisoner. We will do without a feast tonight."

The Aide altered with respect:

"It shall be done."

She looked at Miles.

"What am I to tell Conqueror Marr when he arrives? There will be no offering for him."

Miles saw the mandibles fluttering, and heard the resonance deep in his bones, but couldn't understand , until he felt the tender mind of Ruth's in his.

She put his reply right into Canla's consciousness:

He has gone without before. He can do so again. Besides, you have news of great import to give him.

"How do you know of this?" She used the command interrogative resonance mode, but it was lost on Miles.

We know everything that you know Ruth's reply insinuated into Canla's mind. You have no secrets from our mind probes

A commotion to one side caught Miles' attention.

The Aide was returning with Brooke Ward, who was complaining vociferously about her nakedness and lack of a breather. Miles stared. She was completely bald, still dripping from the chemical bath she had been rescued from, and not even given the courtesy of a towel.

He took off his General's greatcoat, and gently put it round her shoulders, ushering her to Paula Forbes' care.

"Board the helos," he ordered - "and cut the film short. We have what we came for."

As he watched the helicopters being loaded, he saw Canla glance to the sky, and followed her gaze.

The contrails of two rapidly approaching needlejets could be seen, as soon they themselves took shape, on a line for the small landing strip at Temple. Several of the Usurper troopers were also looking to the planes, and Miles noticed that those that had been milling around with the Hive troops were now rejoined to their comrades, a few looking to Canla for guidance. The Hive troops were shuffling nervously.

"Start the engines and go," he yelled to the copter crews. "We are cutting it a bit fine." He began to walk to the chopper nearest him, all the while looking at Canla, keeping his mindlock active, when suddenly he realized he had no idea what she was saying to him.

Ruth he empathed. But his mind was blank. He was alone.

"Go" he yelled to the chopper pilots, as he started running for the nearest.

One took off, amid a cloud of swirling dust, its fission engine whining as it catapulted its bulk northwest towards the Monsoon jungle and safety. The second followed in its wake, leaving the third hovering just above ground, waiting for Miles to board. Paula was in the doorway herself, hand outstretched to grasp his as he ran to it.

He saw the reflection of the muzzle flash in the canopy of the chopper before he heard the THWOP of the launcher or felt the impact on his back. His momentum carried him a few more yards, almost, but not quite to the waiting grasp of Paula, and as he fell, he grunted "GO", before his world collapsed around him.

His last thought was "I wonder what happened to Ruth?"

**********************************************

Thera Keep

Merlin was losing.

Shauna was a bystander at a jousting match - but one with evil undertones.

She saw - and felt vicariously - the fury of Ashaandi at being thwarted, and the terror building piece by piece in Merlin's mind as he realized that Ashaandi was intent on imprisoning his personality again in the dungeon of his mind.

"No" he wailed aloud, and Shauna longed to be able to do something to help - but was powerless.

She could only observe.

Meanwhile Catherine was in the grip of the Circle Adepts, put there by Ashaandi, and now unable to break free from their imposed will. It was all that Shauna could do to hold her in the present, but her psi energies were divided between Catherine and Merlin. Half of her was useful to neither, but to surrender one to help the other was ruinous.

She curled a thought at Ruth to see what was happening there, and was relieved to see that the rescue was almost complete, and that only Miles remained to get to the waiting chopper. Ruth's task was done.

"Ruth. Help Merlin. Quickly" she yelled, focusing her whole attention on Catherine.

Ruth left the group at Temple of Chiron to their own devices, and hurled herself mentally into the fight going on in Merlin's mind.

She met the implacable evil of Ashaandi, and recoiled, unable to comprehend how any mind could be so vile. He himself recoiled when confronted with the absolute purity of a childmind - his fondness for children and their purity was known only to a handful, one of whom, of course, was Ruth's grandfather.

Merlin seized the momentary respite to clasp Ruth mentally:

Block him. I need time - block him

Ruth rose to the challenge, spinning a portcullis of neural blockers in Merlin's mind that only she could open, and was rewarded by the sensation of Ashaandi banging his head against it as he tried to batter through.

Ruth. Seal this and excise it, pleaded Merlin as he opened his mind wholly to her, and guided her to that secret place, that dungeon where he was for so long imprisoned.

But your memories. You'll lose your memories, she cautioned.

Just do it he commanded.

Ruth guided her tendril of thought through Merlin, searching for the neural synapses that controlled the dungeon, found them, and seared their ends to form a continuous loop that forever bypassed them.

It's done, she empathed, as Merlin collapsed half a Planet away and both Ruth and Shauna felt him ebb from their consciousness.

*****************************************

Penzance

It's over. Have your Circle release her

Haraad Ashaandi felt the command in his mind. From a four year old wise beyond her years.

In his heart he knew she was right. He and his Circle had been beaten. Oh yes, Miles Cavanaugh had been killed in the rescue attempt - Conqueror Marr might yet have his celebratory feast - but the rescue had been, on balance, a success.

Even without the help of the Prime Empath, Catherine, whom he had neutralized.

Well, he would finish her off. Ruth would be no competition for a few years yet.

He instructed the Circle to admit him to her mind, and reeled in shock when they refused him entry.

But I am Ashaandi - his mental shout reverberated around Planet.

He was stunned to hear Catherine's voice in his head:

And the Circle is mine now. We are henceforth the Circle of Atreus. Haraad Ashaandi, You are alone.

[Hydro]

Sea Hive

Attaché Warren Newland took a deep breath to compose himself and collect his thoughts. It was a great honor to attend to the Chairman, even in his small role as an ‘attaché’, which was a fancy word for errand boy. Still, these mere messages, which were too sensitive or personal to be transmitted over a holo or even a secure channel, were important to the continuing function of the People’s Utopia. The Chairman must be kept fully informed, and he had left explicit and painfully clear instructions on what types of data were for his eyes, and which were to be delegated to his many subordinates. Warren did not make those decisions and the interpretations of what the Chairman would spend is rare and valuable time on. He was thankful for that since the Chairman was known to have a relentlessly logical and cold fury if his wishes were countermanded or misinterpreted. His previous superior officer had found out about Yang’s fury the hard way. He didn’t know what had become of her, and he really did not want to know.

Warren closed his eyes and focused, recalling his Chairman’s Wisdom.

Put aside the crass demands of flesh and bone…

His apprehension lessened, as it always did when he meditated on the Chairman’s wise words. To some extent he was able to but aside his more base weaknesses of the flesh, and this allowed him to better do his duty.

Thus steeled, he stepped into the screening area. In moments it gave him a red light, indicating he had passed and that it had verified his identity. The door to the Chairman’s anteroom opened soundlessly and he once again stepped forward, taking five measured paces into the middle of the anteroom. Although he could not see or hear it, he knew the door had closed behind him, and that he was being scanned again.

There was a tingling in his left side, and he perceived, rather than felt, a probe. The tingle turned into a feeling of heat.

Warren was not worried. Yet.

“CITIZEN. REMOVE THE DEVICE ON YOUR LEFT HIP. PLACE THE OBJECT BEFORE YOU AND STEP ONE STEP BACKWARDS. YOUR HAVE THREE SECONDS TO COMPLY,” a voice said.

Warren did not hesitate. He removed his assigned attaché datapad, placed it on the floor, and took an almost hasty step backward.

He knew the datapad was being interrogated and analyzed, but he saw nothing. There were no bright, stabbing lights, or strange and ominous sounds. Warren did not feel threatened or slighted in the least bit. If his datapad was a danger to the Chairman then it should be neutralized or destroyed. Likewise, he understood at a theoretical level that he may very well be required to make the same sacrifice. There were many forces at work that would like to see the Chairman and the People’s Utopia reduced to dust, and they would stop at nothing to achieve their ends. These powers could have tampered with his datapad, replacing or reconfiguring it to cause the Chairman distraction harm or or even death. Likewise, he knew that he might have been altered or compromised. He had no idea if he had been changed, but he accepted the possibility and understood the consequences. If such came to be then he would die for the Chairman. Doing so would spite those that would destroy the People’s Utopia, and preserve the Chairman. Warren felt fortified by this fact as the seconds dragged on to minutes.

“CITIZEN. YOU MAY RECLAIM THE DEVICE YOU BROUGHT INTO THIS ROOM. THE CHAIRMAN IS AWARE OF YOUR PRESENSE. YOU WILL BE ADMITTED WHEN THE CHAIRMAN IS READY,” the voice said. The door to the Chairman’s office opened.

Warren was both relieved and a little disappointed. Dying for the Chairman was more honorable than delivering a simple message. This time he wouldn’t die, but at least he knew he would deliver his message. Maintaining his erect stance, he paced into the Chairman’s room and took his place just inside the door, which closed soundlessly behind him. The room was spare, and rather small. Warren had heard some of the rumors and had seen all the TruVids released by the Ministry, and these demonstrated the excesses and corruption of other peoples on Planet. He knew that the Gaians were weak and given to disorder, and the wanton pleasure of the flesh, for instance, and that the Spartans were coldly inhuman, a people that eliminated the weak instead of allowing them a productive place within the society, like the Hive. Some of the vids showed the criminal excess of the Morgans, and the lavish waste of resources devoted to pleasure and not productivity. It was said that their leader CEO Morgan had palaces of gold that were the size of an entire Hive warren, and from what he had seen Warren could well believe it. In the Hive all had a place, and there was a beautiful duty to that place if one came to understand it. It was a duty to what was greater than your own petty desires, and a sacrifice of all that was beyond what was needed for life and service to the community. The Chairman’s modest office was a source of pride for him. It demonstrated that even the best of them, the good Sheng-ji Yang, who was a man of vision and resourcefulness, and who deserved the highest praise and reward, would put aside his own needs or wants for the good of the society that he had founded.

Warren took a moment to look around, and the office hadn’t changed since he had delivered his last message. The Chairman himself was seated in the left corner. He looked the same as ever, with his ageless face that could be of a man in his thirties to sixties, and close-cropped almost white hair, which suggested he would waste no more time than was necessary for appropriate personal hygiene. His form was fit and lean. There was no trace of sag in his face, his leg and arm muscles were taut, and there was no evidence of a paunch around his midriff. His legs were crossed under him, and his hands were folded in his lap.

It was not his lithe form, however, that increased Warren’s feelings of reverence and admiration. It was the look of supreme calmness, and confidence, that he radiated. Even now, with his eyes closed in meditation, he looked to be in perfect control, and at peace with his surroundings. Such a bearing could only come from a great inner contentment, from someone who truly understood his place.

Warren longed for a peace like that of Chairman Yang, and he was content to wait for his audience until the Chairman was ready.

Presently, he was. Chairman Yang’s hooded eyes opened slowly. For a languid moment he remained otherwise motionless, then his hands unclasped and his arms went to his sides. He rose in a single fluid motion. He stood still for a split second, then walked toward his visitor.

“Attaché Newland, welcome,” Yang said, unsmiling as always. “I understand you have a dispatch on the Gaian pacification?”

Warren stood straighter, if that was possible. “Yes, Chairman. May I retrieve the datacrystal?”

“You may.”

He slowly reached down and took his datpad from his waist and brought it to chest level, holding it away from the Chairman, but within his sight. He was careful not to point the datapad at the Chairman in case, but some stroke of bad fate, a treacherous trick had allowed it to be sabotaged and get past the intensive security. If it would try to kill the Chairman it would have to go through his own body first. At the same time, it was necessary that the Chairman could see what he was doing, lest he be vulnerable to a more straightforward assassination.

In a moment he disengaged the datacrystal, turned, and deliberately placed it in the Chairman’s open palm. His fingers closed over the transparent crystal.

Chairman Yang looked impassively at young Warren. “Have you reviewed the content of these reports?”

“Yes, Chairman.”

“I wish you to summarize the contents for me,” he ordered.

Warren almost sucked in a surprised breath. The Chairman wanted a personal report! An honor!

“Yes, Chairman,” he immediately replied. “The Progenitor attack on Velvetgrass Point continues and their infantry advances slowly into the heart of the city. As ordered, before the start of the attack our infantry pulled to the captured city of Temple of Chiron. The Hive air force bomber and interceptor wing, after having removed the last of the Gaian air defenses, likewise pulled back before the start of the Progenitor assault. Gaian resistance is weak, but persistent. They have a hastily formed a number of militia with no armor that are armed with hand weapons to meet the Progenitor infantry now that their regular military defenders are gone. The militias are being destroyed faster than they can be created, however. It is the opinion of the Hive theatre command staff that it is a holding action, no more.”

Chairman Yang nodded to accept the report. “Did our airforce identify any…other Gaian units during their bombing runs?”

“Yes Chairman,” Warren continued. “Some of the pilots reported a feeling of distinct unease to the north and south of Velvetgrass Point during their return to Temple of Chiron. One pilot identified a Gaian spoor launcher to the north of the city, and another what was likely a mindworm cohort of unknown strength. It would appear that we have found the long missing Gaian native life army, which is massed to the north and south of the city.”

“Have these findings been reported to our faithful ally, Conqueror Marr?”

“No, Chairman. By your orders, no information of this type has been implied or given to the Progenitor command staff, or their minions.”

The barest hint of a satifsfaction passed over Yang’s face. “Very well. You may go.”

Warren gave the Chairman a brief bow, turned, and left the room. As before, he could feel the door close behind him. Was there a gleam in the Chairman’s eyes, he wondered as he left. He thought about it for a moment, and then decided he it wasn’t sure.

Alone in his office the Chairman was smiling.

[Googlie]

Temple of Chiron

Canla shuffled nervously as she waited for the shuttlejet to taxi to a halt on the apron. An honor guard of sorts had been assembled, and they too were waiting with apprehension, as Supreme Conqueror Marr was to be feared, and not quite knowing what had just happened at the base, they were expecting his wrath.

They were not disappointed.

He stormed down the ramp, and strode to Canla, who bowed her neck in submission.

"Report" he snarled, the harsh resonance grating on all around. The guards quailed in fear, and Canla, too, was visibly quaking.

"Supreme Conqueror, I am not sure what exactly happened," she altered hesitantly.

Marr caught the nuances of fear and indecision, and amplified them, and cast them back at her

"Not sure?" he bellowed.

Even the Hivean troops standing around felt the palpable fear wash over them as their senses understood the harshness of Marr's tone. Peake and Hsui stood observing, quietly.

Marr continued:

"These were Morgan helos, were they not? We interrogated them, but they refused our signals. What were they doing here, and why were they not shot out of the sky on their departure?"

Her alterings were disjointed, and untelligible. He caught barely the gist:

"News crew......mindprobe..........escaped prisoners...........empathi.........General Peake...."

The latter he did catch.

Whirling around to the General, he let loose a barrage of interrogative resonance, just rumbles and echoes to the Hive officer, who shrugged his shoulders in reply.

This further infuriated Marr, who turned to a Usurper guard and ordered:

"Arrest this man"

As the guard unslung his weapon and advanced to General Peake, he suddenly stopped, aware that all around, the Hive troopers were likewise readying their weapons in defense of their officer. Seng Hsui's was trained on Judaa Marr himself.

Peake defused the situation:

"Hand me a translation yoke," he said, and took it from the hands of his aide, settling it over his shoulders and neck, and adjusting the transmitter by his throat.

"Conqueror Marr, if you will but listen, we can explain."

Marr glowered at him, but assented to an explanation

"We had been contacted by a Morgan newscrew to do a piece on the base capture and the treatment of the Gaian prisoners - a not unimportant propaganda boost in our chairman's estimation. They arrived with what seemed to be Haraad Ashaandi, but who was in fact an empath of no mean power - a Spartan - who for a brief time had the base under mind-control. During this time the prisoners were freed and loaded, and around the time that your deputy, Canla" - and here Peake nodded in her direction - "saw thgough the deception they took off. Not before she personally killed the empath. He is over there."

Peake indicated with a nod the direction where Miles body lay, guarded by two Hive troopers.

Marr looked at Canla:

"Is this so?" he resonated.

She altered assent.

He strode over to the area where Miles' body lay, and stopped short.

"But this is a Spartan General," he snorted. "How could you so easily be deceived?"

Peake just shrugged again. Canla averted her gaze, resuming the submissive posture.

Marr turned back to her

"And what of the submarine pick-up?" he queried.

She looked blank, and altered:

"I know nothing of a submarine. What is this?"

Marr turned to Peake.

"Are you aware of what I say?"

Peake shrugged again.

"I heard rumors. A bunch of children lost in the fungus, picked up by a Spartan vessel. I believe."

Marr regarded him.

"Not Spartan. Peacekeeper. Our satellites detected it. A large number of refugees and an abandoned Rover. Why were the search flights discontinued?"

Peake shrugged again:

"Better things for the aircraft to do than search for kids. How goes the battle for Velvetgrass Point?" he asked.

Marr turned away without answering, and strode to the small command center, with Canla shuffling after him.

"Let us go and see this wonder of the Manifolds" he snorted.

Peake looked over at Hsui, and winked.

************************************************

Free Drone Central

Scott Allardyce leaned back in his chair with an air of quiet satisfaction.

The coded reports had just come in. The Temple prisoners had been rescued, although with the loss of Miles Cavanaugh, and the children were on their way to safety, albeit somewhat cramped, in the PK submarine.

He tapped out a series of messages;

To Lady Deidre Skye, advising of the 2 missions' successes, and of the successful rescue of Julia;

To Pravin Lal, thanking him for the co-operation of the Peacekeepers in the rescue mission;

To Nwabudike Morgan, again thanking him for the assistance of the Morganites in the evacuation of the prisoners;

To Trixie Potter, advising of the rescue of her brother;

And paused, wondering if the olive branch would be rebuffed, or accepted, then decided to send it anyway:

To Corazon Santiago, advising that Julia had been rescued, but Miles Cavanaugh lost.

Now it was time to plan some offensive strategy. Too long the Axis had sat idle, allowing Sparta to bear the brunt of the Progenitor attack.

He pondered.

[Hydro]

Velvetgrass Point

The fungal stalks in this area of the forest were well over seven meters high, and they were thick and robust. The top portion continued to branch from the trunk until the fungi looked almost like naked trees from Earth. Each main stem was generally a meter in diameter, with the first limbs spiking off from the trunk at about half way up, which left an easy three meters of relatively open understory. Their top limbs were severely inter-grown, weaving in and around each other as they seemed to reach for the sky. Stems and branches varied in color from vibrant pink to a deep russet purple, and there were dark blue undertones where the limbs were shaded, creating a natural camouflage of color and shape. The basal fungal mat was fairly even and the watchful Gaian fungal tenders had opened passable and clear paths. This locale was a favorite Gaian example of a mid-range fungal forest, and students, gatherers, and scientists had carefully studied and tended to it over the last few decades. Each path was well known to almost all the Gaians of Velvetgrass Point. In short, it was a perfect staging area for a vengeful Gaian native army, with abundant cover and easy egress toward their objective: Velvetgrass Point.

Standing in the fungal gloom was Kirsten, and the shadows suited her mood quite well. Jay was standing beside her. As usual, Fluffy was darting around and getting in everyone's way.

Kirsten gave a mental yank "Fluff!", but, as it had for the last several days, there was no effect. Fluffy was now, officially, out of control. He was a small whirling tornado of barely contained fury, and his component wormlets were whizzing about each other so fast he truly looked 'fluffy', for once, instead of vaguely shapeless. He flew by, and he was gone in a second, disappearing into the fungal mat. He was moving fast even for Fluffy.

Kirsten sighed, looked up toward the fungal canopy to watch the last dregs of daylight slip away. She had been waiting for the right time. Now was that time.

"Jay," she said, "time to corral the troops."

Jay turned and looked at her. He had been expecting this for the last few days as tensions had risen to a fever pitch, and all the emotions surging from the surrounding humans and the multitude of mindworm boils were wearing on him. He could only imagine what it was doing to the more sensitive or new empaths and brood trainers, or the newer native additions to the Gaian mindworm army.

"Call Leonardo," she continued. "I need to talk to him."

"Anything specific you want to discuss with him?" he asked.

"Just summon him," she retorted. "And the senior brood handlers, too. We need to get this over with. Velv is burning and has been for weeks. Our people are dying, and our worms need feeding. Is that enough?"

Jay was about to comment on that, but then thought better of it. Kirsten had not been in a talkative mood lately, and she was as prone to a minor blow up as an explanation. Every time he looked at her he saw that the muscles in her neck were bulging, and that there was tightness in her lower jaw. She seemed to be standing stiffly and walking deliberately, almost as if it that simple act required a singular effort. The worst part was her eyes, though. Jay thought they looked lifeless again - lifeless with a grim focus.

There was nothing to be done. Jay focused and projected: Leonardo?

A bare moment passed. Yes, Jay.

Kirsten wishes to talk to you. Can you come?

Another pause. Yes, but not for long. Some of ours are going feral and I must to attend to them. Do you understand?

Jay knew all too well the damage a feral could do the them, and to their plans. Yes, Leonardo. Just come when you can. Bring the trainers, too.

Jay felt a mental and non-verbal affirmative from Leonardo, and he knew he would come. For a daemon boil he was quite prompt and courteous, after all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sub-Conqueror Maler processed his latest battle report. He had suffered the loss of a squad, and a few more had taken minor damage. Overall none of his units was seriously under strength, and the Invaders were beaten. Even their pathetic projectile weapon fire had decreased after the last assault, and even now the siege cannon were being set up to fire on the last holdouts in their tall, sickly gray-green towers. These Invaders, and, indeed, none of the invaders, possessed the ability to withstand the penetrating fire of his infantry. The strangely shaped Invader towers would soon be reduced to dust.

He had other worries besides the advance of his infantry, however. The logistical support of his armies was a never-ending concern, but it was never really a problem. His Progenitor troops were somewhat self-sufficient and could fight for days on their internal resources, but they still required resupply from the captured city of Temple of Chiron. The cloudbase, which used be a great interstellar starship that was now the space tether for the space elevator, proved invaluable in this respect. Goods could be ferried up the space elevator at Spires: Ascendant and then dropped to this base or, if necessary, to his position in the field. The only worrying area was where the bothersome fungus which surrounded the Invader city. Maler had never liked the fungus; it was like a vague and unyielding threat. All Progenitors were required to train in the fungus, but killing the native life had always been difficult for his Progenitor troops. Many had died and they invariably sustained losses, but those that had lived were stronger for it. And Conqueror Marr was always hungry for the energy the destroyed native lifeforms provided. Mercifully, though, there was a clear corridor the captured base and his target, although it did narrow alarmingly halfway between Temple of Chiron and his objective, the Invader city. His troops were now all along in the assault. Although he couldn't see them, he knew the cowardly armies of the Invader Yang had withdrawn well back of this bottleneck, and they were currently hiding at the captured base. So much the better: their absence would then leave his victory unmarred and unsullied.

Maler let a deep-throated rumble resonate in his abdomen. All was going well, and he would be able to give a victory to the great Conqueror Marr. It was clear that, as always, the Progenitor would prevail. There was no other possible outcome.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*`*~*~*~

Redwood Tower, Velvetgrass Point

Julie dipped the rag in the gray, sooty water and gave it a hard squeeze. After another squeeze she lifted the rag out of the water, and squeezed again to remove the excess water, which trickled back into the bowl through her clenched fist. The bowl tipped slightly as her wrist sagged against the rim, allowing a little water to spill onto the floor. Lying prone on the floor, she had to go by feel.

With one hand she unfurled her rag, looked at it, and noted with dull satisfaction that most of the dust and grime was gone and that it was moist again. Slowly and deliberately she brought the rag back and she laid it over the nose and mouth of her son Ricky. He groaned and weakly tried to force the cloth away as he whimpered.

"It's OK honey," she whispered. "It's OK." He put up his chubby little arm to ward off the rag.

"It's yucky," he moaned.

Brushing his arm aside, she forced the cloth over his face so he could breathe.

"Mommy, no," he pleaded, his soft, high pitched voice muffled by the rag.

Julie hated doing this, but she knew she had to. The smoke was so thick now, even here on the floor of her apartment. Ricky wiggled a few times as she held him to her body, and that was a small comfort to both of them. But mostly he was limp and listless, and she felt so helpless. He was all sweaty from the heat. She could feel the damp, kinky curls of his head as it rested on her other arm, and she could barely see his beautiful chocolate skin through the swirling smoke.

"It's OK, honey," she lied again. "Mommy loves you. It'll be OK." He quieted a little. She wasn't sure if he felt reassured or if he just didn't have any more fight left in him.

The rag she had over her own mouth was already caked with dust, and it was dry from the rising heat. Julie didn't care anymore, though. All that mattered was her Ricky, and that he was close.

"I love you, Ricky," she whispered as she kissed the back of his head. The few tears she had left sooty streaks down her dark cheeks as they disappeared into Ricky's hair.

In back of her there was a dull and penetrating boom, a roar, and rush of air. She felt the tower sway and tilt crazily, and dust seemed to explode from everywhere. Then there was a roar and a wash of air, heat and light. She clutched at her Ricky, and tried stifled a scream. The room went sideways and she was falling. Falling.

[Hydro]

Outside Velvetgrass Point

Leonardo could feel them begin. Even though he wasn't directly linked to the fungal net right now he could feel it pulse with energy. Initially there was resistance, which built like floodwaters as they flowed through a narrow canyon. The pulses and counter-pulses rose, and became more turbulent with each passing moment. He could feel crests and waves, eddies and strong undertows that tugged and clutched at the empaths. One, who he recognized as Malra, was overwhelmed and was clearly drowning. Her thoughts were becoming less coherent, and her strength was dropping.

Leo knew it was his time. He sank his tendrils into the fungal mat and instantly connected. He flavored the pulses, and tasted them in turn. Stilled them. He reached out to Malra and touched her. She was panicked, with wild thoughts and turbulent emotions were radiating from her. In her fear she tried to force him away but Leo wouldn't let her. He buoyed her, supported her, and enveloped her. Her thoughts calmed a little as she could feel herself being bouyed. Suddenly she latched on to Leo, hard and fast, like a drowning swimmer might clutch at a rescuer. Leo reeled, his thoughts infected by her panic. He was not shocked for long and a moment later he infected her with his calm. She reeled again, and then succumbed, willingly after a moment.

Together they rose.

Malra was calm again, even if she was a bit shaken. She didn't take the time to thank Leo but got to work again and Leo stood back to watch. Gradually the chaotic energy in the net lessened and was focused and directed, and it seemed that the dam of resistance broke. Lines of connection were formed and the backsurge from Planet was co-opted.

Now the empath's call was clear and unopposed. It rang through the fungal net, and Leo could feel the response from Planet. The massive dam of energy was redirected, and it now flowed in a tidal wave where the empaths desired. To Leo this was mystifying. He knew he understood his net, but he would never be able to call upon Planet the way the empaths could, the way they were doing now. All he could do was watch, admire, and assist where he could.

The massive pulse radiated through the net, and the lines of energy merged from four directions at the edges of the fungus both north and south of Velvetgrass Point. At these focuses the fungus reacted, drinking in the energy - growing, and reforming, mutating. Already nodes were growing, drawing in resources and expanding. Spores ripened as the empath's surges of energy nourished them. They heard the empath's call. Fungal blooms erupted to foster the ripening spoors, and these bloom rose as a trunk with tubules - a cooperative fungal community with one goal: reproduce, and spread their invasive spoors.

Something akin to joy pulsed through the net as the spoor launchers first spasmed. The spoors were encapsulated in a caustic fluid, and wrapped in a self-sustaining resonance field as they were ejected from the spoor launchers. This would allow them to survive the aerial transit, and make the land or sea they would fall on responsive and fertile for their growth. Any foreign matter would be seared, cauterized, and consumed.

Spoors were falling. Leo could feel them.

In a small way Leo felt a small sorrow as the spoor launchers directed their spoors at the unsuspecting Progenitors that were destroying Velvetgrass Point. They were not fungus, which would welcome the spoors and accept them as they descended. The Progenitors were the foreign matter that would serve as food. The spoors would sear them and envelop them in a hostile resonance field. Then they would infect them, using them as raw material for their growth.

Already he could feel the battle. Energy continued to ripple, and even more spoor launchers coalesced.

Leo prepared himself. He knew that the launchers were but the vanguard of the attack. Leo felt the rage crest, and gave himself to the rage.

It was beautiful.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Aerial report in, Sir," the runner said as he handed his superior office a data crystal.

The officer took it without comment and dismissed him with a wave. After he was gone he went back to his personal rover. There were advantages to being the Political Officer, after all, and Captain Wang took advantage of these privileges, when prudent. Standing at the airlock to the rover, he submitted to a DNA and retinal scan and then typed in his command code. The airlock at the rover base opened, and he stepped inside. It automatically cycled, and in a few moments he could hear the air exchangers hiss. He did not take off his breather, however. Oh no, he was far too careful for that. He tapped a few commands on his wristpad, and a second later got a green light, indicating that the air was not adulterated. Then he jacked into the command port and did a brief scan of the interior of his rover. After all, one could never be too careful. One of the prime means of advancement was the acquisition of compromising information on a superior officer or key underling, either real or manufactured, or an 'unfortunate accident' to those that stood in your way.

His predecessor had found out the hard way about her lack of security precautions, and the dangers of trusting a subordinate. Wang smiled inwardly since he was much too controlled to do anything so overt as to show his emotions.

Finally, he was satisfied that it was as safe as possible and he cycled the airlock to the rover's interior. Even so, he advanced with a sleeve gun activated and ready, just in case. Outwardly he seemed perfectly calm and casual. More that one opponent had thought they would catch him and unawares, and they were now all dead.

No one was lurking in the shadows. In a way Wang was disappointed, since he no longer had anyone to test his mettle. He was also satisfied. He had gained his position through a combination of ruthlessness and hard work; he knew he was no political hack, and he knew was a true asset to the Hive and its goals. He was Yang's man, and he would remain so. In a way that was a given, since no one in his position could have any doubts about their ability and loyalty - all others would have been culled long ago.

Wang sat down and his modest comm port, activated it, and slapped on his encryption sequences, and his newest toy: a resonance blinder. That fool Zakharov had provided some value to the Hive before he had escaped from the Ashaandi circle of idiots, at least.

He did a second series of tests, and he was finally sure he was a secure as he could be. Wang slipped the crystal he had received from the runner into the reader and a series of images emerged from the stealth flyeye he had observing the battle at Velvetgrass Point.

The sky was clear, with a few white cirrus clouds at the horizon. In the center of the view was the city of Velvetgrass Point, with it gray-green rounded towers, high balconies, and flying skyways. Great plumes of black smoke rose from a dozen places, and the plumes rose and then bent as the winds carried the soot toward the east. The haze of smoke hid many towers on the east end of the town, and others were mere stumps amid the debris. The center of the city was partially intact, although the main towers had taken a few direct hits from the artillery and the siege guns. On the east side of the city was the Progenitor encampments, reserves forces, and artillery emplacements, which were constantly pounding the city. A few electronic tags appeared in the image, identifying Progenitor units as they advanced. There were no tags for Gaian defenders.

North and south of the city was an endless expanse of pink xenofungus. At this intermediate distance appeared that the hills that rose to the north and south were covered by a spiky pink and gray mat, with occasional fungal stalks rising above to show the true size of the fungal forest. Velvetgrass Point itself was in the shallow valley in between the fungal ridges. It looked that the fungus went on forever to the north and south, and it eventually even closed in at the horizon. Velvetgrass Point was almost completely surrounded by fungus.

Motion caught the attention of the flyeye, which zoomed in toward the focus of the new activity. There was a disturbance in the fungus, and the flyeye's view shifted sickeningly fast between the four or five areas. After darting between the images the flyeye finally split its images, and all five were shown in separate panels.

In five areas around Velvetgrass Point the fungus seemed to heave upward. Some chunks of fungus were thrown into the air in the convulsion, but the disturbance was clearly fungal growth on a massive scale. Individual strands of fungus, which would be the size of tree trunks, were weaving themselves together and then, in some cases, merging to form an almost smooth trunk. More growth occurred from this newly formed trunk, and these appeared to be similar to the waving, flexible arms on the fungal tower. As they grew the arms seemed to quiver, pulsing and flexing, reforming themselves. Gradually the centers of the arms darkened, and they now looked more like tubes than arms. Each of the six arms flexed a few more times and then seemed to straighten slightly, pointing up and away from the main trunk of the fungal mass.

Wang watched with great interest. He knew what these objects were - spoor launchers. But he had never seen them so big. Most spoor launchers he had heard of only three launchers off the main trunk, but these had five or six! Moreover, they generally only occurred singly and he had never heard of more than two forming together. Yes, he thought. This will be interesting.

Each of the spoor launchers seemed to pulse, with the flexing starting at the base, working upward, and then extending out through the hollow arm launchers. The pulsing increased in rate, and as the rhythm increased the arms reoriented themselves. They move slowly, but inexorably, to point in one direction: toward the city and the Progenitors that surrounded it.

The spoor launchers started firing in unison. Each gave one huge convulsion, and then the air around them seemed to shimmer like a heat mirage above the desert. Within the rippling air were dark swirls, which moved on their own within the shimmering air. When the light hit them the glinted pink, blue, and red, and some even shimmered a brilliant yellow. The rippling effect increased and expanded, then arced upward from the launchers.

The launches form two of the spoor launches formed together and coalesced, and then arced toward the Progenitor troops outside of the city. There was massive movement from the Progenitor troops as the spoors descended. The spyeye tried to zoom in on the movement, but it was hampered by the atmospheric distortion. What it could see was a little confusion, but more re-ordering. Shelling of the city stopped immediately, and the Usurper gunners, which had previously been leisurely pulling down the city in a methodical fashion now re-targeted the closest spoor launcher, which as in the southern expanses of fungus. Its ordinance met the spoors, and exploded above the army's heads. Spoor pods within the protective resonance field burst, and as they burst the energy they had absorbed from the fungal net was released and traveled within the resonance field. Briefly, the sky was masked in bright light from a thousand points, and this energy boiled, consuming more spoors. More artillery intersected the spoors, and there were more explosions. The spoor launchers belched again, and another volley was set loose. Fingers of energy built, and expanded, and the spoor launcher's resonance field contained the energy. More and more spoors and artillery met, and annihilated each other, until the sky above Velvetgrass Point was a maelstrom of white-hot plasma, barely contained by the resonance field.

Then, there was a pause. Neither the spoor launcher nor the artillery fired, and the ball of plasma suspended within the resonance field above the Progenitor army flattened as if squeezed by the resonance field, and then traveled back toward the spoor launcher and the artillery emplacement. It looked like a white arch. Each leg of the arch impacted, blasting the spoor launcher and the artillery. The spoor launcher at first absorbed the raw energy, and the fungus around it seemed to shimmer as it drank it in. Then its surface started to boil, and the arms started to writhe. It tried to give off another burst of spoors, but the energy lanced it and it exploded within the trunk of the launcher. Entire arms were shorn, and part of the launcher seemed to turn inside out. More energy descended and the launcher sagged, then it suffered a series of muffled explosions that rippled across its bulk. Energy that descended to the other side of the white arch impacted the artillery emplacement before it could fire its third volley. The artillery disappeared for a moment, and more white light fell upon it. There was no movement for a moment: just light. Then there was a rumble, and a fireball expanded outward from the artillery had been. This blast traveled horizontally, and it caught all the nearby Progenitor troops as it expanded. Part of the plasma joined the horizontal blast, and a second wave of energy washed over the Progenitor troops.

While the artillery exploded, the second spoor launcher was showering the transfixed Usurpers with more destruction. The troops were armored, and many of the infantry seemed to hunker down, but the spoors still found their mark. Some of the troops found some cover from the blast and the spoors, but others were not so fortunate. There were a series of small explosions, miniscule by comparison, as portions of the units succumbed.

The other three launchers showered their spoors on the invaders at the outskirts and within the city. Wet, caustic resonance fields fell and enveloped the attackers and, where they were not destroyed, they started their life cycle. The spoors worked quickly, digging into the damaged surfaces leached by the acid and from the resonance field they had traveled in. As infantry, the Progenitors responded defensively. The launch was short lived, and the Progenitors had survived.

Then it was done. Ther rippling atmospheric resonance fields dissipated, and the last of the spoors fell, and either consumed or were consumed. The spyeye got a clearer view as the distortion decreased, and it appeared that the reserves outside of the city had taken the brunt of the attack. Only a crater remained of where the artillery had once been. At the city there was more movement as the squads regrouped.

After a few moments the images in the skyeye shifted again back toward the fungus. The spoor launchers were still there, but they were apparently inactive. More movement registered all around the city. Instead of heaving, like when the spoor launchers had formed, it looked as if drops of fungus were dripping from the edge of the xenofungus toward the Progenitor troops. There were at least a dozen of these pink drops, and they fell from both the north and south of the city. The spyeye zoomed further in on several of these drops and it was clear that these were enormous mindworm boils.

Wang involuntarily sat back from the monitor, and his normally perfectly composed face showed some strain. Look at the size of those mindworms! And the numbers!

The mindworms flowed almost too fast for the eye to follow, but to the flyeye it looked like drops of pink water falling downward, gaining speed as they descended downward, which in this case was toward the recovering Usurper reserve and assault troops. As they neared their prey the mindworms ballooned out, forming a wall, which enveloped the outermost troops. There were flashes of light as defensive fire went up, and a few holes appeared in the flanks of the mindworm attack. In other areas there were no counterattacks or the attacks had no appreciative effect, and the wave rolled on. Then there was another lateral explosion, evidently from a siege cannon rupturing. The wall of destruction preceded the mindworm advance, wreaking destruction to the remaining infantry. Moments later the mindworms flowed over these stunned infantry, too. There were more explosions as one, then two and three siege guns erupted. Light faded, and movement lessened.

In the city the mindworms flowed down the rubble-filled roads, and over the smaller buildings. The Progenitors, having been in direct combat and not having suffered from the artillery's collateral damage, were better prepared and started to fire into the mindworms as they advanced. Bursts of light impacted the pink, flowing drops, and parts of them simply disintegrated. However effective their fire might be against humans, it was not nearly as effective against the mindworm boils. After parts of their mass had sloughed off, the boils simply morphed and reformed. And they kept coming. The first boils crested, and surged over the nearest Progenitor infantry unit. The flyeye assigned an electronic tag to the infantry units: neutronium armor with resonance ability, with likely trance training. Mindworm pseudopods leapt from the main boils of the mindworms dove in toward the defenders. Some of the pseudopods blew apart, and others disintegrated under the strain. However, one by one the Progenitors fell, even if the mindworms were weakened. Finally the siege gun was overrun and there was a massive horizontal explosion, which wreaked havoc on the remaining buildings, and the remaining defenders. The energy release did not seem to affect the mindworms, or slow them down. As soon as they were done consuming one infantry unit they reformed and flowed toward the next.

In a few minutes it was over. A few muffled explosions heralded the extinction of the last Progenitors in Velvetgrass Point. A few mindworms had collapsed under the strain, or the defensive fire, and more were damaged. At least six mindworms were largely undamaged, and the flyeye detected a few more that were likely moving in the fungus. After a few more minutes these, too, were lost in the maze of the xenofungus undergrowth.

There was not longer any Progenitors or significant movement at Velvetgrass Point. A few mindworms stayed within the city, but more retreated into the fungus. The spoor launchers remained as sentinels, guarding the approach to the city along the bottleneck in the fungus that lead to Temple of Chiron. Any advancing forces would have to destroy them to advance, giving the defender advance warning of any attack.

The flyeye went into passive mode, and its view zoomed back.

(continued on next post)

[Hydro]

(continued from previous post, which was too long)

Captain Wang turned off the display and immediately started his encryption and scrambler for his comlink to Sea Hive. He sat up straight, and then activated the link.

"Honorable Chairman," he said, "I regret to inform you that our valiant allies have suffered a significant setback in their attack on our strategic objective Velvetgrass Point. Unforeseen Gaian defenders were apparently in the xenofungus that surrounds the city, and they attacked after the armies of Conqueror Marr were fully committed. Our best reports indicate that their loss was grievous, and I fear total. I await your orders. Wang, out."

Wang sat back. All his code words were in place, and Chairman Yang would understand the subtext of the message. The Progenitors had suffered their first catastrophic loss to what they viewed as one of the weakest factions on Planet, the Gaians.

His reserve finally broke and Wang smiled. Now the Hive was supreme on this continent. Should the Chairman decide, he could attack the Gaians at will since the Gaian's forces were concentrated, weakened, and flushed out. The Hive controlled the air, and even had a few empath needlejets, and their army of fast-attack rovers and infantry was ready on a moment's notice.

Truly, this had been a good day.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sea Hive

Chairman Yang read the report from is Political Officer with his arm in the Gaian theatre and he was contented. The Gaians had been most useful, and this was the first time he was pleased that they had not been exterminated since they had proven to be a useful weapon against the Progenitors. As he replayed the battle in his head he was struck by how the Progenitors had fought well, but that they had still fallen. For all their strength they could be defeated. The salient lesson was this: their magnificent technology was no match for the native life of this planet, when that native life was sufficiently aroused and focused. It is even possible that the native life would prove useful in defense, since all human conventional forces were worse than useless against the Progenitor's massive offensive and defensive firepower.

There were other potentially more important lessons to be learned, however: could conventional forces prevail against the might of the Progenitors? Only the Gaians could effectively harness the might of Planet, although the all the factions had tried. Native life forms were difficult to nurture, and capture in from the wild was chancy, at best. In short, he and the other factions could not count on native life forms since they could not be efficiently controlled or constructed. To Yang it was clear that the Progenitors could not be defeated with native life alone.

As always, the question turned to conventional forces - that was the other salient lesson that must be understood. Who could teach him? There was one faction that excelled in all things military, his old foes the Spartans. The key to whether available human technology could stand against the Progenitors was to be learned from the Spartans, and the linchpin of this lesson was the battle for Sparta Command.

To Yang it was clear: Sparta Command was where the die would be cast.

[senatus]

Believing Drone Drop Transport, 236 km East of The Leader's Horde

"Approaching drop point Alpha, ETA 5 minutes."

Sven Alfredsson nodded at the navigator's warning, and turned to the
assembled covert missionary operations teams.

"Team Mark, final check stealth suits."

Sister Jessica McCollough and the six other members of team Mark squeezed
their left hands, activating the triggers for the their Spartan-supplied
stealth suits, and became almost invisible.  Normally, the suits looked
simply like an old Earth fireman's suit, covered entirely by a fine downy
fuzz.  The "fuzz" was actually a carpet of microfibres, each with
tiny optical receptors and transmitters.  What would have been visible
from any one side of the suit was retransmitted to the other, so that a
casual observer would've seen what was behind the suit, rather than
the suit itself and its owner.  There were limitations to the technology;
the microprocessors that manipulated the images had to contend with multiple
angles of view, and an alert observer could discern the occasional ripple
outline in the air, especially if the operative was moving quickly.

Jessica knew there were more sophisticated optical stealth suits available
- in fact, her old Morganic team leader Rider had offered the use of the
same advanced model types that Scott Allardyce and the late Anastasia Zakharov
had once possessed, but the Morganic suits were designed more for civilian
use.  The Spartan models possessed a much longer battery life, and
in addition, the microfibres were both radar and sonar absorbent, and could
also function as tiny heat pumps to spoof thermal detectors.  They
would be better suited for the fifty-kilometer trek that Sven and Team
Matthew would have to undergo, and Jessica's own Team Mark was planning
on blending in with the workers rather than relying purely on a technological
edge to reach their objective.

"Stealth suits check out," reported Jessica's second-in-command, Benjamin
Michaels.  Michaels had been assigned to Team Mark by Sven, probably
to keep her safe, Jessica suspected.  She hadn't worked with Michaels
before, but had heard only good things about him from that nasty business
with the Spartan Inquisition.  It had been gratifying start to the
Believers' probe operations to have ferreted out and shut down - violently
- the Circle of Ashaandi's backdoor into Sparta, and the data salvaged
by Sinder Roze had allowed her to track down and destroy their base of
operations.  It had cost the Circle precious energy and time investments,
but just as importantly, had shown everyone that Ashaandi and his "supermen"
were neither as invincible nor omnipotent as they had made themselves -
and perhaps believed themselves - out to be.

But for all that, the Believers had still been a junior partner in the
Axis probe hierarchy, and Operation Raging Mouse was their first chance
to prove that they could run a credible operation all by themselves. 
Their success or failure would have great symbolic implications, although
probably only Sister Miriam or Chairman Yang would truly appreciate the
consequences.

"Time on target, ninety seconds.  Shutting down internal lights."
the navigator reported tersely.

"Open pod bay doors.  Stand by to jump," Sven ordered.

Visible once again, Team Mark lined up in double file, facing inwards
from the sides of the fuselage.  The modified bomber's bay doors opened,
and wind and distant ground whipped by at just under the speed of sound.

Contrary to holodrama wisdom, the Believing-Drone drop probe teams were
inserting in broad daylight.  Given their stealth suits, they were
little more visible in day than night; and the Free Drones' Hammer squadron,
like most needlejet pens, normally did their bombing operations in daylight
- so the presence of the drop team's bomber - and the insertion itself
- was camouflaged by the squadron's operations.  Their only real danger
was interdiction by Hiverian interceptors, but Scott Allardyce had co-ordinated
the operation perfectly; Archangel squadron was flying in formation
above the clumsier pens, almost spoiling for a battle with any enemy interceptors. 
None had been forthcoming, however, and this phase of the operation seemed
to be going according to plan.

"Jump!"

At Sven's command, Jessica launched herself forward, feet first unlike
the classical paratroops of Sven's days.  Behind her, the other members
of Team Mark followed suit.  Their intent was to present the minimum
air resistance, landing as soon as possible.  The digital display
of Jessica's suit altimeter spun downwards, and she tensed, preparing to
activate the manual override to the jump jets if necessary.  But the
computer worked as programmed, and the nozzles on Jessica's jet pack ignited
on schedule.  A tremendous jolt shook the Believing minister's slim
frame, but it was no worse than she'd felt in the VR sims, and she was
prepared for the ten-second, four-point-eight gravity deceleration. 
As she touched the ground, the jets cut out, and she tucked herself into
a crouch to absorb the remaining impact, just as trained.  Jessica
smiled; when she'd studied the civilian martial art of Aikido a lifetime
of innocence ago at the U.N., she'd never anticipating doing a breakfall
after plummeting at terminal velocity.

Barely five seconds behind her, Benjamin Michaels also came out of his
crouch while the remaining five members of Team Mark were still in the
air above them.  He scanned about alertly, his shredder pistol at
ready.  If by incredible mischance Hiverian soldiers or workers had
been present and spotted the probes, he would have to gun them down, and
the whole team would have to clear the area quickly with their remaining
jumpjet fuel.  Fortunately, the rolling farm fields were temporarily
abandoned, the workers warned through the Hiverian defence network of the
incoming bombers.  Further to the West, Hammer squadron was dropping
real
bombs just as expected, and then they would turn about, releasing Sven
Alfredsson and his Team Matthew as they did so.  Team Matthew would
be literally jumping into the fire; as they were much closer to The Leader's
Horde, they wanted the actual cover of bombs to disguise their landing. 
It was much riskier of course, but Alfredsson's team all had more military
background then Team Mark, and Alfredsson himself was much better suited
to a commando-like infiltration than a civilian one.  The bombing
also was likely to cause civilian casualties, something Michaels knew Sister
Jessica was unhappy about; but the Believing Drones were at war
with the Human Hive, and while civilian lives might be lost, at least their
souls would be sheltered by a just and merciful God.  Certainly Yang
never showed any hesitation in sacrificing lives - even of his own
citizens - towards his twisted vision of Utopia.

"No hostiles," Michaels reported vocally once the last of Team Mark
was on the ground, and Jessica nodded.

"Everyone change as planned, then."

At Jessica's instruction, the seven members of Team Mark unsealed their
stealthsuits, revealing the simple utilitarian clothes of a Hiverian farm
worker.  Hive-issue shovels came out, and all but two of the stealthsuits,
the jumpjet packs, and shredder pistols were buried under the rich farm
soil.  Michaels placed a small sensor beacon on top of the cache;
the contents would be waiting for them on their return.

"Let's go.  Nearest shelter is about three kilometres east of here."

The probe team, now fully disguised as a simple agriculture workers
for the Hiverian Ministry of Ample Supply, trudged towards the ferroconcrete
block that served as the air raid shelter for the People's Farmers. 
The faces of two dozen drones looked up as the newcomers entered, as well
as single Shift Warden.

"Citizens, come inside.  Which unit are you with?" the shift warden
asked, a simple name tag identifying him as Henke.

"I am foreman Abigail MacBride, and this is the team assigned to my
supervision," Jessica replied, carefully avoiding the faux pass of referring
to her companions as "her" team.

"You're not part of this shift, how did you come to be in the area assigned
to me?"  Henke asked.

"I'm a soil enrichment specialist.  Our rover was disabled by a
stray bomb, so we made our way here."

Henke frowned slightly as he waved a data wand over the bar code tattooed
on Jessica's forehead, and came up with the data that she'd downloaded
into the People's Census a week ago.

"You're a Gaian?" he asked.

"My mother was born in a liberated Gaian base, but she was a
productive member of the Hive.  As am I."  Jessica retorted,
with just the right amount of heat as befitted a loyal Hiverian worker
whose faithfulness to the Chairman was questioned.

"Of course, my apologies," Henke said quickly.  "We're waiting
for the all-clear signal ourselves, but we've just completed a harvest
collection and will be returning to the base afterwards.  You should
come with us and report your status to the Ministry officials on our return. 
Come, join our fellowship in the meantime."

Jessica's team joined the other drones watching broadcasts from the
Ministry of Education, extolling the virtues of hard work and self-sacrifice. 
The transmission was interrupted in due time by the all-clear signal, and
the drones came out of the bunker to finish loading their tractors with
the harvested vegetables and fruit.  Jessica joined in; there were
no such things as idle hands during Work Shift.

"Shift Warden, may we load our instruments in these tractors?" 
Jessica asked, and Henke of course agreed.  She nodded to Michaels
and the others, who began loading their specialized probe equipment - carefully
disguised and hidden amongst the various agricultural sensors and instruments
- onto the tractor.

Henke turned out to be an amiable companion on the trip back, proudly
pointing out the various crops as they passed by.  More inconveniently,
he frequently asked Jessica's opinion on this or that matter; fortunately
she'd crammed enough knowledge in advance to be able to answer convincingly. 
It didn't hurt that she'd spent time with real Gaias at Velvetgrass
Point, although she tried hard not to imagine what must be happening to
the priceless hybrid forests there even as they spoke.

Eventually the mixed group approached one of several large cargo elevators
leading deep into the bowels of The Leader's Horde.  Jessica didn't
bother looking for any of the old surface structures from the former Believer
base; almost everything would've been recycled into the Hive's industry
long ago, and anything else would've been levelled as a statement of assimilation. 
The Hiverian soldiers guarding the elevator didn't even look twice at Jessica's
group except to scan their bar codes; hundreds of drones used this elevator
every day, and the probe team was less visible in plain sight than if they'd
been in their stealth suits.  Still, she breathed an inner sigh of
relief as the doors closed and the elevator descended.  So did Henke
and his drones; although specially trained for surface work, no native-born
member of the Human Hive felt truly comfortable above-ground.  Many
never saw the light of day in their whole lives.  Only the least agoraphobic
were chosen for the most trying of duties, service in the Hiverian Navy. 
Jessica knew that the pride and joy of Yang's armed forces was co-ordinated
out of The Leader's Horde, due to the installation of the Maritime Control
Centre.  That made the outcome of Operation Raging Mouse doubly important,
if only from a symbolic perspective.

Jessica wondered how Sven and his team was faring.  The cyborg's
chosen method of infiltration was to go through the giant ducting system
that filtered the fungal spores and supplied air to the base.  Then
they were to proceed to their primary objective, destroying the abomination
of the genejack factory.

Once separated from Henke, it was child's play to stash their covert
equipment.  One of the quirks of Yang's society was no great loss
of efficiency that normally would've been expected of a centrally planned
police state; this was in part due to the unquestioning obedience the citizens
owed to the Hive.  That was a strength, but also a weakness Jessica
could exploit.  Simply leaving the equipment in a crate marked "Property
of the State: Ministry of Abundant Supply - do not touch without authority"
sufficed; since no-one legitimately in the Ministry of Abundant Supply
was responsible for the crate, no-one would touch it.  Blind, unthinking
obedience had its advantages, Jessica thought without irony.

Their work for the day complete, Jessica's team dispersed to their assigned
Sleeping Halls.  More than anything else, the giant sleeping halls
were perhaps the most chillingly casual statement of Yang's communal utopia. 
In each hall, hundreds of drones opened small, coffin-like cubicles - barely
lockers, really, and climbed in for their assigned rest break.  They
didn't even own the cubicles; they were assigned them.  But in a concession
for the regrettable nature of human individuality, at least they kept the
same cubicle each night, and even had a small shelf to store their meagre
personal belongings, before arising the next day to go to the communal
feeding vats.

Jessica knew that not all Hiverian citizens had to endure such cramped
quarters; the talents were even granted private rooms - necessary for the
creativity demanded of them - and state-sanctioned family units could share
a single-room apartment with as little as three residents.  
But Jessica had deliberately chosen to reside with the drone population,
for theirs were the hearts and souls that James Domai and Miriam Godwinson
wanted to reach.  So she opened the locker, and undressed without
self-consciousness, as did the hundreds of other drones in her hall, before
stashing her clothes and climbing into the cubicle.  She was pleased
to note that some of the male drones nearby cast appreciative glances her
way; for it proved that even within the teeming mass of uniformity that
Yang's society had created, still individual nature and desires remained. 
Her own friend Sharra was exceptional proof of that - as was Foreman Domai
himself.

[senatus]

(Continued from previous post, which was too long)

---

Sven Alfredsson's internal chronometer beeped, timing the mission progress. 
He looked about with some justifiable satisfaction at Team Matthew; they'd
made excellent time in cutting through the outer filter mesh and penetrating
the maintenance shafts, and now were barely an hour away from their final
objective.

"OK team, let's rest up a bit here," he ordered.  The camera in
this old maintenance room had been bypassed, continually replaying the
loop of an empty room, so his team could take a bit of a break for food
and water.  The genejack factory was at the very basement of The Leader's
Horde, and so they'd had a long descent.  This was as close as they
were going to get.

As the rest of the team talked quietly amongst themselves, or prayed,
Sven beckoned Ari Danko over.  Danko was a Free Drone, formerly specializing
in water and sewer maintenance.  His role had been specifically assigned
by Sven.

"So, is this it Ari?" Sven asked Danko as he brought out a holotablet.

"Yes, Brother Sven.  We can go into the regular corridors at this
point, and make our way to the nearest recycling pump processing station
here.  Then we open the water hatch and should be able to get all
the way to the genejack factory through the water pipeline."

"If everything goes according to plan, that is," Sven mused.

"If God is with us, how can it not?" Danko asked.

"Well Ari, my experience is that God helps, but he expects us to do
our part.  Sometimes that means dealing with things when they go wrong."
Sven answered, before turning to the others.

"Let's go, people.  We've got work to do."

As it turned out, Danko was right - but so was Sven.  The probe
team proceeded down the empty corridors without incident before reaching
the pump control station.  To Sven's initial surprise, there was a
high security lock on the control room hatch, but on reflection he realized
it made sense.  Every Hiverian citizen lived in deadly fear of flooding,
after all.  Not that drowning out the base was their objective, and
besides, to achieve that would've required controlling all six stations.

"Maxine - deal with the lock."

One of the two security systems experts came forward and knelt before
the door.  Although secure by Hiverian standards, the lock was nothing
compared to the Morganic technology the Believing Drones had access to. 
A small aerosol can came out, and hundreds of specialized nanites were
sprayed onto the lock.  Thirty seconds later, the door was unlocked.

Sven signalled his team to activate stealth and position themselves
on either side of the door, before he yanked it open.

"Damn," he swore.  A very surprised maintenance worker stared at
the apparently empty doorway, his mouth open in confusion.

"Sorry," Sven muttered, and shot the drone through the skull with an
X-ray laser.  The worker fell backwards without a cry.

May God have mercy on your soul, Sven thought as he entered the
room first, his laser swinging to either side quickly.

"Clear!" he messaged to his team, and they filed in and shut the door. 
Danko immediately raced to the waterworks hatch and began to undog it.

"Sir!" Maxine hissed, and pointed, temporarily forgetting that none
of them could see each other.  Sven saw it in a moment himself, though
- one of the omnipresent cameras, niched in a corner.  The old-fashioned
charge-coupled device optics wouldn't have registered the team members
themselves, but the camera would've definitely witnessed the door's opening,
and the collapse of the luckless maintenance drone.  Sven still had
enough blood in him to feel it run cold.

"Judges 1-4," he ordered his team grimly.  They still had a chance
to get out alive, but it'd take some luck, and the battle-hardened cyborg
hated
relying on luck.

---

Twelve levels up, and barely five minutes previous, Angel swore with
vile intensity, massaging her temples.  She still had a splitting
headache from Ashaandi's fiasco with the enemy empaths.  Before the
psi-link broke, she could feel a number of the Circle turning to this Catherine
Atreus.  Only her own considerable mental talents had sufficed to
keep her free. Plus, the fact that she was a self-celebrated psychopathic
deviant; ironically, that very psychosis had protected her from the massmind
the others had succumbed to.  Ashaandi was also still free of course,
plus a few of his most dedicated and capable disciples - but the Circle
was broken, and Angel felt a strange new emotion - fear.  For the
first time in her long life, Angel's confidence was shaken, and she felt
an almost desperate need to assert herself.

A light blinked on the console before her, indicating an urgent message
from one of her underlings.  Although the Circle had just suffered
a mass defection of its psi talents, Ashaandi had had the foresight to
recruit a number of non-psionic talented and ambitious individuals as well. 
Although they were considered cannon fodder by the psis, at least they
knew that they would enjoy positions of privilege over the rest of the
common herd when the Circle reigned supreme.  Most of these agents
were recruited from, indeed frequently comprised the rank-and-file of the
Hive's covert ops teams. They would be doubly valuable after the recent
events, but right now Angel was still in a foul temper.  She slapped
the commlink control.

"What!"

The caller, Lieutenant Norris, couldn't help but flinch as Angel appeared
before him, her face twisted with barely-controlled rage, looking more
like some terrible demon then the mythological creature whose name she
bore.  Rumour had it that the sisters were born of Believer parents,
and had in some strange twist of psychology sought to become the antithesis
of what they'd once been taught to be.  Whatever their history, however,
Angel terrified Norris, and he spoke quickly to deflect her ire.

"Ma'am... our link to the police headquarters just picked this up,"
he said and without prompting replied the video record.  Angel watched
with interest, laughing briefly as the maintenance drone fell backwards
with a circular hole burnt into his head.  However she didn't fail
to note the distinct absence of an attacker.  Obviously, someone was
using a stealth suit.  No doubt the Morganites.

"The police?" Angel asked, even as she began strapping on her own probe
ops equipment.

"They're on their way, but...."  Norris was intelligent enough
to know the police would find nothing; while capable of keeping the drones
in line, they certainly weren't trained for counterespionage.

"Assemble the team and meet me at the security elevator."

Angel briefly wondered what these Morganites were up to, but it didn't
really matter to her.  What mattered was that she was going to have
some toys to play with soon, to keep her mind off more disturbing matters.

---

The elevator door ahead of Sven opened, and two Hiverian police troopers
moved out in full synthemetal SWAT gear, their weapons sweeping back and
forth to cover the hallway.  Seeing nothing, they advanced forward,
and the elevator disgorged another dozen fully-armoured troopers. 
The last one in line moved forward with his fellows before suddenly crying
out and pitching forward onto his front.  Within a quarter of a second,
four more of the police were also dead, and the remaining troopers threw
themselves to the ground, looking for their assailants.  They saw
none - the high-powered X-ray laser was both silent and invisible to the
naked eye, and Sven Alfredsson smiled grimly as he depressed the trigger
of his weapon yet again.  Unlike for the drone worker previous, Sven
held no regrets; the Mental Hygiene Police were amongst the worst specimens
of humanity the Hive had ever produced - discounting the Circle, of course.

The Free Drone members of his team likely felt the same way; in any
event, they were trained and professional, and several other police died
in seconds.  The others, although still in confusion, reacted instinctively,
spraying shredder fire all around them.  Sven heard one of his team
cry out - although everyone was prone, still the ricochets could be deadly. 
There were only five troopers left, now, and Sven switched to his shredder
pistol.  The muzzle blazed; the shredder wasn't as covert as the laser,
but it also didn't require seven tenths of a second to recharge, either;
and then there were no more enemy troopers, just five dead bodies.

"Who got hit?" Sven snapped out.

"Me, sir - Ari Danko."  The answer was a tight whisper of pain,
and Danko deactivated his stealth suit so that Sven could examine him. 
It didn't take long; Sven could see the lacerations across Danko's gut,
and the blood leaking out of his light body armour.  In a proper medical
facility, those wounds would not be life-threatening.  In this situation,
the former drone was as good as dead.  Sven owed it to his team members
to give them the truth, and he shook his head grimly.

"I'm sorry, Ari."

"That's... that's all right, sir.  We knew the risks when we signed
up.  I may walk through the valley of death tonight, but the Lord
is my shepherd.  And I can still take some of the bastards with me
when they get down here, and be of use to the team."

Sven nodded as he administered painkillers.

"Go in peace, Brother Ari."

One by one, the other team members touched Ari on the shoulder, but
only briefly; time was of the essence and already the lift was descending
again.

"Here's the plan, group.  This time we let them come down the hall
- Ari will occupy their attention, and we will hit them from behind, then
go up the shaft ourselves.  Maxine - you'll override the elevator
controls.  Jeff, Glen, you'll get off at the port level; Suet, you
and Maxine will get off at sublevel one.  Akira, you and I will go
all the way to the top.  Everyone will make their best way back to
the rendezvous as originally planned."

The lift arrived, and the Believing Drones flattened to either side
of the corridor again.

"Fire on my command," Sven said, as the doors opened.

Four Hive troopers came out, and as they did, Sven knew his team was
in trouble.  Unlike the police, these were part of the base garrison,
and their fusion-assisted plasma steel armour was six times as heavy as
the police infantry had worn.  Plus they carried Hive-standard military
chaos carbines, which were far more dangerous than the simple shredder
hand weapons the police had.  And they knew their business, advancing
in a skirmish line as another four troopers emerged, then another again. 
A final group of four took up position as a rearguard at the elevator entrance.

"Change of plan," Sven sub-vocalized, and the piezoelectric sensor on
his throat translated the commands clearly to the earbugs of the probe
operatives.  "These guys are too well trained and equipped. 
Instead, we'll...."

Sven never got a chance to finish his sentence, as a burst of shredder
fire erupted from the back of the elevator, and there was a sudden explosion
of gore where Jeff had been crouching.  The stealthsuit obviously
still was working, but a spreading pool of blood marked where the body
lay.

Sven swore; but the cyborg's combat reflexes were already reacting,
throwing his body to the side as a burst of shards tore into the wall where
he'd been standing, even as his mind put together the pieces.  Enemy
probe team, he thought.  Using the troops to draw our attention
- smart.  They've obviously equipped with stealth too.  But how
did they just locate us?  No sensors here, and we weren't moving...
damn.  They've got an empath.

"Fire!"  Sven ordered.  It wouldn't help much - the troopers
were too heavily armoured for any of his team - except himself, of course
- to seriously degrade.  And they still couldn't see the Hiverian
probe members.  But that at least beat being picked off by the opposition. 
And if they could see him and not vice-versa, he had to even the odds somehow. 
He could see that the nearest trooper carried an ECM jammer; for a moment
he wondered why they hadn't been deployed, then realized that the enemy
probe team commander preferred both groups remain stealthed.  It made
sense, since they had the empath, even if their regular troopers weren't
doing much good.

Sven made a split-second decision even as he acted.  Team Mark
was still out there, and there was no way Matthew could get out of this
now.  But at least they could improve the odds for Sister Jessica. 
He reached forward, and his shredder - powered off his internal powerpack,
not batteries - flashed barely an inch in front of an unfortunate trooper's
helmet.  The man didn't even have a chance to flinch before his skull
was a grey mist.  With his other hand, Sven reached down and grabbed
the ECM jammer grenade, activating it.  A burst of EMP washed over
the corridor.  In a moment, the remaining members of Team Mark began
to flicker into existence - even Spartan combat stealthsuits couldn't resist
a burst at such close range - but so did seven other figures.

"Drop your weapons!"  Angel ordered, but even as she spoke, her
mind issued a powerful mental command to the nearest opponent to force
him to comply.

A mighty fortress is our God...

The mental statement - along with an unyielding mental resistance -
came back over her psi-link, and Angel recoiled briefly.  Not Morganites
after all.  Believers.  Angel knew from experience that mind
control of Miriam's fanatics was virtually impossible - they were brainwashed
far more effectively than even Yang's drones, and unlike the drones, had
an inherent resistance derived from their ideology.  Symbols were
the key to telepathy, and the Believers in particular were apt to frame
their symbols into hard, unyielding imagery like shields and fortresses. 
She could still scan them, of course, and....

"Sven Alfredsson."  Her sudden recognition was spoken with a rich,
languid appreciation.

"Angel."  The cyborg replied, and even though the troopers had
oriented their weapons towards him, it was as if only the two of them existed
at this moment.

The worst, save perhaps Sand or Ashaandi, Sven thought to himself.

That's right, Sven my darling, Angel laughed mentally as she
forced her way into his mind.  I wonder why you're still here with
your brain intact.  I wonder just what dear Kurt's been up to. 
I'm going to have such fun finding out.  And I will find
out.  I can read you like an open book.

Then you'd better learn to speed-read, Sven retorted, and with
electronic reflexes, his shredder aligned and his finger squeezed. 
Several things happened in quick succession, at the speed of thought.

Angel could read the cyborg's intentions even as he acted, and a sudden
lance of debilitating mental paralysis hit the cyborg.  His mind still
worked, but suddenly his synapses couldn't respond.

But his body could.  Months previous, after meeting Kurt, getting
his memory back, Sven had sworn that he'd never fall into the hands of
the Circle again.  Not alive, at any rate.  And so he'd carefully
crafted a hard-wired program into his cybernetic control system. 
One command.  A very simple one, and Angel's psi attack had no effect
on the small piece of silicon that issued it.  Even if Sven had wanted
to, he couldn't override the command.  That was the whole point. 
It wasn't under his control, so it couldn't be under hers either. 
The finger squeezed, and hyper-accelerated superdense shards of plasma
steel tore into Angel's body.

Angel screamed with a pain she'd never felt, though frequently inflicted,
as she could feel her legs - her beautiful legs - sliced up.  She
was lucky, though - the cyborg's aim had been low.

Sven smiled an extremely unpleasant smile as Angel fell.  She wasn't
dead, though - suddenly three of the Hiverian troopers and two of Angel's
probe team threw themselves into the line of fire, shock at their own actions
still on their faces.  The empath was instinctively defending herself,
even though it meant sacrificing her allies like the peons she thought
of them as.  Others dragged her back into the lift, the heavy security
doors closing.  She always was a self-centred b*tch, Sven thought,
and his reflexes came back under his control.  Chaos weaponry chewed
into his body, and almost as an afterthought, he shut down all his pain
receptors, even as he returned fire.  Oh yes, there also was one other
thing he needed to do.  He keyed in his MMI, instructing it to send
an encrypted message burst to Sister Jessica's private frequency.

Probe team compromised, but enemy probe team neutralized.  Good
luck, and God speed.

[senatus]

Ninety kilometres from Eastguard

"Well, well.  Looks like we're about to get some visitors."

Major Rao Kosarau looked up from the scope he'd been examining, and
turned to his communications officer.

"Tie us into the repeater and get me Eastguard."

Kosarau began to manipulate the controls on the high-tech "periscope"
belonging to his recon rover.  In typical Spartan fashion, high-tech
innovation had been loaned to a low-tech concept, and a whisker-thin optical
fibre moved in response to his manipulation, stretched between the roof
of the rover and a low-emission modified flyeye.  It was also typically
Spartan to have a senior officer at the sensor controls; Spartan doctrine
didn't subscribe to the antiquated theory that commanders only commanded
and soldiers only soldiered.  In the Spartan army, everybody
was expected to be able to perform multiple functions.  Besides, the
crew compartment of the recon rover was far too cramped to waste space
accommodating a "swivel-chair" commander.

"Sir, I have Eastguard HQ on-line, and...."

"Just a minute, Annie," Kosarau replied, not taking his eyes off the
scope.  Now that looked like....

"Sir...."  There was a bit of urgency in Private Annabelle De La
Croix's voice - she was still young, after all - but Kosarau held up his
hand to silence her, before making a final adjustment to the rover's sensors. 
Only then did her turn and nod at La Croix.

"On speaker, Annie."

"Major Kosarau, this is St-James.  What have you got?"  The
voice didn't identify himself more than that, but there was a touch of
impatience in it, as if the speaker was a busy man... and Kosarau stiffened.

"Sir!  We have detected enemy forces headed for Eastguard. 
I have visual analysis, Field Marshall."

Kosarau didn't bother to apologize for keeping the second most important
officer in the Spartan Federation waiting, despite his surprise. 
It would only waste even more of Salvadore St-James' time... and he had
nothing to apologize for anyway.  Spartan military protocol could
be surprisingly flexible - so long as the job got done.  And from
everything he'd heard of St-James, the Gecko was a man of few words himself. 
Still, he could feel a few prickles of sweat on his scalp as he addressed
his microphone; if the Gecko wasn't enough, for all he knew the entire
Junta might be listening to his report.  Kosarau licked his
lips and began, his brief nervousness instantly giving way to long-ingrained
military training.

"Four units, all of the type MilInt has designated as Mark II Ogres,
headed towards Eastguard.  Navigational plot is being transmitted
now on sub-channel, Sir.  They are proceeding at approximately thirteen-point-four
kilometres per hour, which appears to be near their top sustained speed. 
They are advancing in a loose skirmish formation, and are staying off the
road itself Sir, which implies that they aren't going for a top-speed frontal
assault - but they've going to pass through the minefield we buried last
week, Sir.  Should I activate the mines?"

"Negative, Major.  Stand by."

St-James turned and looked at Mel Cassaroni and Hui Wang.

"Comments?"

General Cassaroni frowned thoughtfully and spoke first, absent-mindedly
twirling a lock of hair with a slim finger as she did so.

"Four units - enough to be a reasonable threat to our forward units,
but only about 7% of their available force aggregate, and not enough to
take Eastguard.  I'd say leave the mines off.  This would probably
be a recon in force - in which case we shouldn't tip them off..  Unless
it's a diversion of some sort?  But I can't think of for what. 
They need to take Eastguard eventually, and they can't insert orbitally
behind us... not with our interceptors in Sparta Command."

Wang spoke up.

"I agree with General Cassaroni.  This is a recon in force. 
Classic doctrine for defeating the column and minimizing our own losses
would be either to respond with a frontal assault of our own, or stand
and defend our fortified position here at Eastguard."

Salvadore St-James, known by many (but addressed by none) as "the Gecko",
nodded.  Like Santiago herself,  the Gecko was justifiably confident
of his abilities - but not so arrogant to believe himself infallible in
his judgement.  The Junta had gone to considerable effort to incorporate
the boldest warriors and the brightest minds into its membership, and that
sort of talent should always be consulted.  He agreed with Cassaroni
and Wang both - but shook his head.

"Prepare to engage forward hostiles with on-point units only. 
Mobilize Rolling Thunder."  St-James ordered, and General O'Brien's
forward units began to fall into position.

"I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, Mel, Hui.  But if the
enemy's true objective is not to cause casualties, but is indeed
reconnaissance, then we should deny that objective.  Letting them
see our full mobile force in frontal assault, or probe our defences here
at Eastguard, needs to be avoided for as long as possible.  If they
want to see everything we've got, I'm not going to oblige them without
at least forcing them to commit a bigger force."

St-James wasn't apologizing for his decision - it was the right one,
and both Wang and Cassaroni nodded.  But it was important to communicate
his intentions to his subordinates.  War, by its nature, was unpredictable
- and no one soldier or officer could be considered irreplaceable. 
Including Salvadore St-James.  If he died, the war would have to continue,
and command would have to be passed to one of the others.  So it was
important for the grand strategy to survive - and be understood by all
of the Junta.

The Gecko turned back to the communications consoles and addressed the
waiting Major Kosarau.

"Major Kosarau.  Maintain your observer's position and relay tactical
data.  The rest of Rolling Thunder will be moving into attack position
in about... two-point three hours.  St-James, out."

Unlike Cassaroni and Wang, Rao Kosarau wasn't privy to St-James' thinking,
but he didn't need to be.  He knew his duty and his orders.

---

"What have you got for me, Rao?"  General O'Brien's voice was
calm over the speaker, almost two hours later.  The four alien mechs
had continued to stilt-walk towards Eastguard, and Kosarau's recon rover
had shadowed them.  He didn't think it likely that the aliens could
be unaware of his presence, but they seemed intent on their original objective. 
Besides, there was no way they'd have been able to chase the nimble rover
down, even if they'd been so inclined.

"Positions are outlined on your plot, Sir.  Take a look at some
of this imagery, though."  At Kosarau's words, close-in zooms appeared
on the Ogres.  Ancient battle damage was evident on at least two of
them.  Of more interest was a battery of smaller guns mounted around
the hull of the alien walkers.

"See those, Sir?  We hadn't spotted those before.  They're
much smaller calibre than the main turret gun; maybe anti-personnel? 
Probably not of much consequence as an offensive weapon - but they'll provide
close-in defence.  Coupled with that heavy armour, I think it means
we're going to take casualties in our attack passes.  We'll need to
concentrate our fire to penetrate that armour, and while we're doing that,
those things are going to be able to target us with the big slow gun. 
Not as bad as if it were attacking and we were defending, though."

"Good work, Major."  O'Brien acknowledged, and punched in his final
refinements to the attack computers.

Hundreds of kilometres away, Corazon Santiago watched as Rao Kosarau's
data was relayed to her.  There was a kind of surrealistic beauty
to it, Santiago thought, as dozens of green dots - each representing one
of Rolling Thunder's rovers - swarmed around the four angry red dots representing
the enemy.  There appeared to be no formation in Rolling Thunder's
forces; O'Brien was clearly intent on denying his opponent any measure
of predictable movement.  Nevertheless, to Santiago's practised eye,
there was a pattern discernible in the chaos, like a shoal of Old
Earth's fish darting about, individually free to manoeuvre, yet part of
a greater, unified movement.  Mobility was a key advantage here in
the open terrain; Santiago estimated that O'Brien was making excellent
use of that advantage, giving him about a 25% force bonus.  She didn't
smile, though.  In the first of Rolling Thunder's attack runs, one
of the enemy units was ringed with the flashing band signifying critical
battle damage.  None of Rolling Thunder's units had those designations
- but not because they were invulnerable, far from it.  When one of
O'Brien's rovers was hit, it simply disappeared off the plot.  But
each pass improved the odds even more; each loss to the alien force reduced
its combined combat power by a quarter, then a third, then a half, while
the loss of one of the rovers diminished Rolling Thunder's strength by
only five percent.

And then it was over.  Rolling Thunder, bloodied but victorious,
came streaming back towards Eastguard, detaching only a few scout units
to search for any of their survivors.  Rolling Thunder's divisions
were still at 70% effectiveness, and the alien mechs were burning wrecks. 
It was both a strategic and tactical victory, Santiago knew - even as she
also knew that General Timothy O'Brien would never come home again.

---

Honor: Progenitor

Conqueror Zzar clicked his mandibles more in thought than in irritation. 
He was disappointed, but not surprised.  He'd hoped that the Invader
Spartans would've exposed the majority of their forces outside their outer
line of defence, so that he could overwhelm them with a follow-up strike
while cutting off their retreat with the Deathspheres.  Or at least
hunkered down like an obstinate Caretaker, where he could pin them for
a crushing blow.  That they had done neither did not surprise Zzar;
unlike the majority of his fellow warriors, Zzar had realized even in the
Challenge Pit that these Invader Spartans were as adept and canny at attack
as they were as defence.  Capable of a measured response, and Zzar
granted his enemies a moment of grudging admiration.

But just as Zzar gave orders, so also he had to obey them.  His
own concerns and cautions were no longer of relevance.  It was time
for full-scale assault.

Supreme Conqueror Marr had demanded.  Zzar would provide.

It was the Progenitor way.

[Hydro]

Velvetgrass Point

Jay staggered against a pile of uprooted masonry, catching himself before he fell onto the more jagged shards. He ended up almost prone, and had to concentrate to help himself to an almost standing position. As he stood back up he automatically adjusted his breather, which had partially dislodged a little while ago, Jay did not know when. All he knew is that it wasn't filtering out the burning stink and the wretched sweet smell of corruption that seemed to overwhelm this portion of Velvetgrass Point. There must be thousands of dead alien troops all around him. Some were intact, and looked like they might be sleeping. Others were horribly burned, apparently being caught in the explosion of their siege guns or as they flamed each other in the panic of the mindworm attacks. A few were partially to completely dismembered, resembling little more than greenish-black puddles of goo. Horribly, others showed signs of mindworm infestation, and the terrible mark of fear that Jay could see even on their alien features. It was a little surreal to Jay - the alien corpses amid the ruins of his home. The combination of the smells, sights, and especially the memories made it a waking nightmare.

As usual, Fluffy wasn't helping. Ever since the counterattrack he had been projecting, or forcing, his strong reactions and Jay knew he was a convenient receptor. Jay had picked up snatches during the waves of mindworm attacks, but the images and emotions had been fragmentary, and they came in flashes. They didn't seem real even though Jay knew they were all too real. As if the waking nightmares weren't enough, he was making it much worse by adding by giving him real nightmares.

Jay moaned. He could feel that Fluffy was nearby.

It was happening again.

!!!!!

!!!!!

Fluffy felt the pulse, and it resonated through every one of his wormlets. For a moment it was so overwhelming that he felt strangely motionless, almost paralyzed. The mature wormlets flexed instinctively, throwing off the extra energy as a more powerful resonance field. His embryonic wormlets also drank in the energy, growing and maturing at an unnatural rate. Even the torpid wormlets were re-invigorated as they were buoyed by the stronger fields and energized by the pulse.

The wonderful pulse! He could go!

GO…GO…GO…GO…GO…GO…GO

In a split second Fluffy had recovered, and he bolted, disappearing into the fungal mat, flowing between the fibrous and interlinked fungal stalks and tubules. Far from being dark it glowed with energy, which Fluffy perceived as light. And here in the fungal mat was alive with more pulsating, throbbing energy then Fluffy had ever seen! Even as he watched the fungus responded, grew, and added its own spark to the mix.

There was little time for much admiration, and certainly none for contemplation. His target was ahead, at the edge of and beyond the fungus, and in moments he was there. He exploded outward from the fungal fringe, moving so fast he barely kept his own coherence. That wasn't too important, either, since any stray wormlets would be picked up by another mindworm, and right now there were mindworms all around him. Fluffy could feel their presence, or aura, and their wrathful determination. Some were huge daemon boils that were ancient in experience, and by no means at the end of their life cycle. Many were like him, modest in size but equally set and determined.

The daemons led, and he could feel them ahead of him as he crossed the human plants and buildings at the edge of the human dwelling place. He could also feel the enemies, those that had hurt him and his friends, those that destroy. They despoiled Planet, even though Fluffy could see that in some way they were part of it. That, however, only made Fluffy more furious. How could they who know Planet fight against it? Why did they make war against those that understood it best?

Fluffy knew no answer to those questions, but he did have a solution.

Ahead he could feel the buzzing, and the sound modulations of conflict. Lights filled the air. Above him the air churned, and he could feel the spoors falling and dying. Eddies formed, swirled, died, and merged. The ground shook, adding to the maelstrom. He could feel the death, and the destruction of the enemy, and Fluffy reveled in it. He also felt the death and sloughing away of some of the ancient daemon boils. For them he felt nothing for they had fulfilled their purpose - to defend Planet.

The tumbled hard forms the humans used for dwellings were all around him now as he raced for the city. He knew some of this, but much was new and even more was missing. Parts of the tall hard shapes that were used by the humans were gone, and in their place were new piles of hard, chaotic mounds. Although he sensed nothing for the forms he knew his human friends attached great importance to them, and knew that it caused them pain that they had been destroyed. When his friends Jay and Kirsten felt pain he felt it with them, and it became his pain. It was so much like the pain he felt when there was a wrongness with Planet, when something was not right. He knew his purpose was to eliminate the wrongness, and that he must do so. What was happening here was such a wrongness. He felt it. His fellow mindworm boils felt it. The humans felt it. It was so.

There were more enormous sound modulations, and more human structures were destroyed. Fluffy could feel, could sense, that more enemies had died, and that their non-living tools that gave death had died with them. There was no sense of joy in the extinguishing of their spark, only a sense that there remained still such sparks to extinguish. More buildings and mounds passed by as he raced, and Fluffy could feel the enemy, and it was close. Violent air modulations continued, and there were raw energy discharges.

!!!!!!!!

Fluffy felt the energy sear, and then pass through him. Part of his self, the wormlets, was instantly crisped and they fell away, useless. Fluffy gave them no more thought than a human would a scraped knee. It gave him no pain, and he simply adjusted his electromagnetic field to compensate for the loss of mass. His velocity remained, as did his target.

The enemy was now so close. He could feel each one of their essences, their sparks. He could see that they were damaged from the death of their enemy comrades that had succumbed to the daemons. There was more energy discharge, and more lances shot through Fluffy. In truth it did him little damage, and it did not slow him. He was so close!

Fluffy formed a tight, pointed cone to reduce his surface area. The world seemed to tumble as he reached out and struck at the nearest enemy, tearing at them, driving his will into their spark - trying to kill their spark.

The enemy crouched, and Fluffy felt resistance. Even though he wasn't touching it, he knew this, and had been taught it. The enemy was trying to ward off his probes so that it could retain its spark. Fluffy felt his will rising, and he let an unrestrained blast of pure, human style hatred blast into the enemy. For a split moment the thoughts were deflected, but then a chink appeared. He saw it at once, and concentrated on it, driving a wedge deeper, deeper into the enemy. Now he could feel its thoughts, and he felt them, understood them. Then he changed them, destroyed them.

Discipline. RIP!

Loyalty. RIP!

The outer layers fell, one by one.

Honor. RIP!

Duty. RIP!

Each layer of defense the enemy put up, Fluffy pierced it, engulfed it, and consumed it. He replace it with raw, unbridled FEAR!

Resistance lessened, but Fluffy did not.

Family. RIP!

Self. RIP!

Life. RIIIIPPPPP!

The spark was gone. Fluffy flowed to engulf the next enemy, and then the next. He instinctively placed his seed in the living, but mindless, host. It was an ancient defense, to use that which would destroy you as the food for the next defender.

The world seemed to ring, with the resonance fields pulsing around him. He was consumed with his task, the task of defense of Planet, and that there were enemies that had to have their spark removed. He leapt from one to the next, engulfing each first in a mental blast and then with his body of wormlets. Their resonance armor was an annoyance, and he could feel it fraying at his own resonance field. He knew they were trained to resist his attack, but it did them no good. Even if they were untried Fluffy knew he would have destroyed them, and these were wounded and their spark was damaged. Few were now left, and these huddled near their unliving machines of death. He felt more energy discharges, but these were unfocused and he avoided them easily as he flowed toward and then over the last few. Their sparks were weak, and he thrust into their minds, blasted past their defenses, and consumed the part of their minds that gave them their spark. Even as they lay dying he partitioned part of himself and ate into the war machine, gnawing into its body, tearing into its hard but unresisting flesh. This was a dead thing, but still it must be destroyed. It was alien, and it would hurt Planet. Even though it was dead Fluffy could feel its energy, and the energy it could unleash on him or on those that would defend Planet. He flowed into it, and felt the energy within it become discordant as he ate more and more. He knew he was done, and the great death machine erupted in a ball of fire that smote the ground, churned the air, and dispersed Fluffy and his essence.

With that there was quiet. Fluffy could feel nothing, not even the wormlets that comprised his being. He shivered, feeling cut off, alone.

He thought, So this is human blackness? Interesting.

********************************

Jay started, and immediately let out a yelp of pain. He had collapsed on part of the old holo theatre, and a shard of ferrocrete was digging into his side. Moving to one side, his hand found a little blood but no real damage, as opposed to the last time Fluffy had done this to him. That time he had fallen and cracked his head on some debris and had come very close to being impaled on some metal conduit. His head throbbed and he quickly shut his eyes, trying to shut out the sights, sounds, and, most of all, the feelings - the total immersion, and the loss of self, if only for a little while.

Carefully and deliberately Jay started to get up. He put a hand on a secure piece of wall, and he leaned heavily and slowly until he was generally upright. Testing his footing, he started forward, using the wall to help steady him as he went. He concentrated on the immediate, which was getting to the Gaian base camp, and away from Fluffy. He looked up, and the base camp was still two blocks away in the hopefully stable remains of a hab tower. If he got there he would probably be all right, or at least in a place where he wasn't likely to hurt himself when Fluffy absorbed him.

Jay could feel him out there, waiting. Jay was sure he had more stories to tell, and more gruesome first hand accounts of the death of his enemies, and how he had helped save Planet. It was strange, and Jay had never known Fluffy to be so focused, and he desperately hoped this would pass, and pass soon.

Jay preferred the irritating and playful Fluffy to the vengeful Fluffy any day.

[senatus]

The Leader's Horde

Sister Jessica McCollough woke with a start, and narrowly avoided bashing
her forehead against the low ceiling of her sleeping box. Her MMI mentally
chimed for her attention again, its algorithms flagging an event of high
enough priority to justify waking her. Jessica called up her menus, and
paled in the darkness of the coffin-like enclosure as Sven Alfredsson's
message replayed itself to her. The cyborg's tone was somehow calm, yet
there was also a subcontext of determined finality that was evident to
the empath-psychologist.

Jessica forced herself to relax, calming both her mind and her body
with a deliberate act of will as she considered her next course of action.
Certainly there was nothing that she could do now. The drone rest
hall would not collectively awaken for another three hours and twenty-six
minutes, and leaving the rest area at this time would certainly draw the
attention of the operatives and AIs behind the cameras that monitored every
room and passage in Yang's communal "utopia". Nor was there any way that
she could help Sven or his team, assuming any of them were still alive.
Certainly none of their MMIs were responding to her own MMI's ping requests.
There could be several explanations for that, but the most likely one was
that their owners were dead, or perhaps in a security cell. Either way,
Team Mark's objectives would not change; it was even possible that they
might be able to rescue any survivors from Team Matthew as part of the
plan to sabotage the Punishment Complex.

It was still frustrating to know little and be able to do nothing,
though. Just like the attack on Velvetgrass Point; Jessica had no idea
as to whether Jay and the other Gaians were alive or not. Just as her own
faction simply was too weak to assist as the rest of the Axis was reeling
under massive assaults from the aliens. Heck, even Morgan was contributing
more to the war effort; at least the mogul's mercenaries were equipped
with modern fusion shard weapons, while the motley militias of the Drone
Believers still had fission impact weapons in some of their active
arsenal.

Still, that was why they were here, Jessica reminded herself. The greater
arena was in the hands of God, but she and her team would still do their
part and execute Operation Raging Mouse. Which would require that she be
well-rested, not fretting pointlessly.  Jessica closed her eyes, entered
a trance, and went back to sleep.

When Jessica awoke three hours later, she felt no fatigue thanks to
her trance training; and she felt no lingering doubts, either. Along with
hundreds of other awakening drones - scattered amongst whom were the other
members of Team Mark - she climbed out of the sleeping box to dress in
her utilitarian drone overalls and shuffle towards the communal feeding
bay. Already long lines of drones had formed in front of the nutrient dispensers,
but with Hive-like efficiency, the lines moved quickly.

After all, every moment waiting in line for food is one less moment
to be working for the Hive, Jessica thought to herself as she carried
the warm bowl of healthy glop to one of the many long tables. The other
seats at the table filled quickly with the other drones, but it was a simple
exercise for Jessica to gently compel the drones away from the seats nearest
to her, so that the rest of her probe team could join her. Likewise it
was easy for her to mentally enjoin the drones to simply ignore the conversation.
While empathic tricks wouldn't fool the monitors, Jessica kept her voice
low enough to be lost in the background noise of the many other drones
who were taking their sole opportunity to relax and socialize as they watched
the morning broadcast from the Ministry of Education.

In quick, low tones she filled the others in on the fate of Team Matthew.
She could see in their faces that they were shaken and upset, but equally
undaunted.  What other factions would've dismissively derided as fanaticism,
Jessica only saw as confidence and faith.  It wasn't so much that
they thought God would not allow them to fail; they were simply content
to trust their outcome into His hands, and either failure or success would
be in accordance to His will.

When Jessica had been a doctoral student at the U.N. Education Agency,
her social psychology professor - a devout atheist who was aware of her
background and held that there was no room for the Believers' social credo
in the 23rd century - had challenged her to prove that there was any difference
between unflinching faith and fanaticism.  To the professor's irritation,
Jessica had responded with a form of vocal Judo, accepting the comparison
but challenging the negative connotation of the terminology, choosing the
example of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  If people
were willing to fight and die for an ideal, what did it matter if
the ideal was secular or divine?  Neither ideal could be justified
by anything other than the unswerving beliefs of those who held them; nor
could social convention be used as a meterstick of validity, for would
the Declaration hold any less truth if it were whispered in the bowels
of the Human Hive rather than shouted proudly in the U.N. General Assembly? 
Therefore, if God existed - which, Jessica contended, there was considerably
more historical evidence of than that He did not - then He existed; regardless
of what everyone or anyone on Planet believed.

This was what Jessica was - a Believer.  So it was with all of
her team, irregardless of whether they had been born into the faith like
the old Lord's Believers, or accepted it later like the Free Drones. 
Each and every one of them believed in what they were doing with a zealot's
dedication; and each would see the mission through to the end.  Moreover,
the loss of Team Matthew was one of the scenarios that Sven himself had
planned for as a contingency, and Jessica's Team Mark was ready to implement
it.

---

Four Hours Later, Hiverian Ministry of Education

Had the Human Hive built its bases above-ground like all the other factions,
undoubtedly its largest and most impressive building would've been the
one housing the Ministry of Education; for this ministry dwarfed all others
in order of social importance to the Hive, and Sheng-Ji Yang lavished it
with the resources it required.  Even the military and public works
portfolios paled in comparison, for the modestly-named Ministry of Education
was charged with all aspects of developing Yang's social utopia, and motivating
its members.  So the Ministry controlled the schools, the laboratories,
the daily broadcasts and subliminals; it also controlled the feared Bureau
of Mental Hygiene, the police, and the Punishment Complex.  For each
was an instrument of motivation, and of education.  There were many
other Ministries, but whenever a Hiverian citizen referred to simply "The
Ministry", it was universally understood to mean the most important one.

Since the Hive instead chose to live underground, the Ministry occupied
an entire level at the very middle of the base, a nexus of communication
and social order from which all other facilities extended.  Despite
its importance, however, Team Mark was able to penetrate the outer layers
of its security easily, for the very nature of the Ministry required citizens
from all walks of life to enter and interact with it on a regular basis. 
Each layer of security was colour-coded; from the universally-accessible
infrared, through the higher functions of yellow, green, and blue, to the
highest classification of violet which was strictly the domain of the Bureau
of Mental Hygiene.  Jessica knew that there was even a higher classification
of ultraviolet, completely unknown to the general public.  This was
where Yang's advisors circulated , along with whatever remnants of the
shattered Circle of Ashaandi still survived.  Fortunately, the Punishment
Complex was only in the Blue sector; for it to be effective as a means
of public education, it had to be at least somewhat visible to the general
populace.

It was somewhere in the Orange sector that a maintenance hatch unsealed
in response to the  prompting of an access program developed by some
of Morgan Industries' best software coders. Four men and three women entered
the chamber, and the door resealed.  Embossed on the door were the
words "Air Purity Monitoring - No Unauthorized Access."

Ling-Wai Zhang surveyed the equipment consoles with satisfaction. 
Each panel was identical to the ones he knew from his days as a drone before
the Revolution.  From here, the functioning of the complex fungal
spore filtration and air circulation was monitored and reported to the
Ministry of Public Works via remote computer link.  It would've been
impossible to actually tamper with the controls - that would've
been far too easy, like in the Morgan Entertainment thriller "From Hiveria
With Love" where the hero had managed to gas the minions of State Security
- but they didn't need to.  Instead, Sister Jessica's plan
hinged on the very social habits that the Ministry of Education indoctrinated
its citizens with, and the fact that its exploitation would also be the
means with which it would be confounded struck the Believing Drone as delicious
irony.

"No problem here, Sister Jessica," Zhang reported after one of the others
had disabled the room's security monitors.  Had anyone in the Mental
Hygiene Police been watching cameras, all they would've seen was a group
of maintenance workers inspecting the room's systems; and not merely a
loop, but continuous and non-repetitive set of actions.  The latter
innovation Jessica herself had coded, although the functions had all come
from the libraries Datajack Roze had given to her.

"Good work, Brother Zhang.  Captain Michaels?"  Jessica turned
her attention to her second-in-command, a veteran of the Spartan Inquisition
Affair.

Benjamin Michaels had been busily unloading the equipment cart - ostentatiously
labelled as property of the Ministry of Ample Supply - and had been setting
up the sophisticated communications console that the team had dropped with.

"I've got access to the Mental Hygiene Police's main channels. 
We can insert messages into and monitor their communications net. 
We can even alter messages and block them as soon as the AI cracks their
encryption.  Looks like we're converging on the polymorphic algorithm...
got the keys.  You were right, Sister.  This Morgan Polysoft
is much better software than we had in Sparta.   Cut through
the Hive firewalls like a fusion laser through butter."

"It should be," Jessica smiled wryly.  "Given what they charged
us for it, even with our 'favoured customer' status.  That just leaves
the physical aspects now.  Jacqueline?"

The oldest member of the probe team had already laid out the uniforms
and was checking the shredder pistols that they had brought with them as
part of the disguise.  Both the clothing and the weaponry were genuine
MHP issue, although some of the clothing had required considerable repair
and cleaning after they were taken from their original owners when Free
Drone Central had rebelled.

"Ready as soon as you are, Ma'am," the grey-haired woman said with habitual
terseness as she handed Jessica her outfit, and Jessica was once again
reminded painfully of her friend Kirsten.

Jessica, Benjamin, Andrejs and Mina - the four most combat-trained of
Probe Team Mark - pulled on the police uniforms, while Jacqueline and Lars
retained their maintenance coveralls.  As Jessica holstered her shredder,
she grimaced slightly, remembering that the last time she'd shot at a real
target, it had been a fellow Believer.  Not that she was going to
recriminate herself further over that; David Weaver had in fanatic
bigotry been determined to kill Sharra and Zakharov, as well as Jessica
herself.

"O.K., my friends, this is it.  Lars, Jacqueline, you've got seventeen
minutes to get the laundry hampers into the position; we'll set out in
eight minutes, and we'll arrive in twelve.  That gives us five minutes
to clear the Punishment Complex.  God be with you both."

"And with you as well, Sister."

Jessica looked at her chronometer until six minutes had passed.

"Zhang, you're on."

Ling-Wai Zhang hit the button he'd been hovering over for the past six
minutes, and four levels down, an alarm sounded in the Ministry of Public
Works.  Ten seconds later, another alarm began to sound within the
Ministry of Education, and throughout the whole complex, workers looked
up in concern.  Zhang waited an additional fifteen seconds, then spoke
calmly but with authority into the microphone Michaels had given him.

"Attention.  Attention, all citizens in level seven.  Malfunction
detected in air quality control.  All non-essential workers are to
evacuate the Ministry immediately.  Proceed in an orderly fashion
to the nearest lifts; do not panic.  All essential personnel: don
your filtration masks.  I repeat, malfunction detected in...."

Zhang's instructions were instinctually obeyed by the Ministry's staff;
not only did his warning sound credible, it appeared credible,
thanks to the clever adjustments Zhang had performed upon the air quality
monitoring system.  Throughout the level, thousands of Hive citizens
hurried to the exits, creating a surprisingly calm but nevertheless chaotic
confusion.  One in which Sister Jessica's team could move freely in. 
Jessica nodded to Michaels, who selected the police channel.

"Punishment Complex detail, report your status."

Deeper within the Blue Sector, Lieutenant Alexander Keith stepped over
to his console to see a face rendered indistinct thanks to the filter mask
he wore, but nonetheless the uniform of a Captain in the Mental Hygiene
Police was visible.  He saluted the computer-generated image, which
looked not at all like the real Benjamin Michaels.

"Complex is secure, Sir.  I've just cleared the medical research
staff out, and all the spheres are locked down."

"Good work, Lieutenant... Keith," Michaels replied as he read the subtitle
that appeared on his data screen.  "Nevertheless, I'm sending down
another squad, just in case.  They should be there in about... four
minutes."

"Yes, Sir." Keith saluted again, and then relayed the message to the
other eight guards under his command.  He surveyed the five dozen
punishment spheres ranged in three sublevels of concentric circles around
him.  Although he'd dampened the sound pickups after the last visitor
groups had left (with pale faces, he was pleased to note - another batch
of Motivated Citizens), he could still see the nearest prisoner, an elderly
naked woman, quivering in computer-induced agony.  Despite the malfunction,
the vital work of education had to continue, and Keith took a sadistic
pleasure in knowing that these social misfits would receive no undeserved
reprieve.  Why, this old woman had been caught with an illegal radio,
listening to the so-called Silvermane's seditious broadcasts!  That
was almost as great an act of transgression as possessing that piece of
filth that those disgusting Believers called a "bible", and if Keith had
his way, the old woman would writhe in torment forever.  Or at least
be recycled for the sake of efficiency.  But Keith knew that despite
his disgust, as a member of the elite Mental Hygiene Police, it was his
duty to fulfil the Chairman's directives and assist the social psychologists
in rehabilitating these prisoners or eventual reintegration into society;
and most of them usually did, Keith conceded.  Those that did
not would be turned over to the Genejack factory.  One way or another,
they would serve the society they had rebelled from.

[senatus]

Jessica McCollough arrived at the entrance to the Punishment Complex
eleven minutes and twenty-eight seconds after she'd sent Lars and Jacqueline
off.  The security doors were closed as part of the routine precautions,
but an LCD screen was mounted in the left wall that provided two-way communications
access to the security terminal inside.  She nodded to Michaels, who
stepped forward and paged for access.  A face appeared and Michaels
identified his team.

"Sergeant Harris and security squad reporting as ordered."

Michaels stood before the retinal scanner; the computer produced an
match between his pattern and the one stored in memory three weeks before
the probe teams had arrived.  Since his security clearance as a mere
sergeant in the MHP was not very high, it had been child's play for Sven's
computer specialists to insert a new record.

Alexander Keith looked over the new arrivals with the critical eye of
institutional paranoia, but that was more reflex than suspicion. 
Nevertheless, he was a stickler for procedure, whether that was the exact
level of pain stimulus to a prisoner, or security protocols.

"Security passes, please?"

The four Believing Drones held up their cards.  These changed regularly
and there was no way they could have been prepared in advance, but Jessica
wasn't worried.  What she presented was a generic ID; with just a
little mental effort, what Keith saw was the very same passcards
that he and his team had been issued.  The doors opened a moment later.
Michaels, with his supposed rank, did the talking.

"Where did you want us stationed, sir?"  Michaels asked.

Jessica found herself tuning out as Keith and Michaels spoke. 
High emotions assaulted her empathic senses; despair, sorrow, pain, madness. 
It was as if a hundred voices were screaming in her ear.  Had she
been the untrained empath that Sister Miriam had recruited so seemingly
long ago, she would've been overwhelmed, curling into a fetal position
to shut out the horrors of so many tortured souls.  But for all the
intensity, this was not all that dissimilar to a mindworm boil's mental
attack, and the trance techniques that the Gaians had taught Jessica served
her well.  She was aware, but not incapacitated.  Aware, and
she felt a rage developing within her as she shared every feeling of the
victims within the punishment spheres.

Alexander Keith, meanwhile, had noticed the attractive young woman at
the back of the newcomers' party, and he found himself strangely drawn
to her.  It wasn't just that she was attractive; there was a strange
magnetism to her that he would never be able to explain. He beckoned her
over to his security console.

"You're new here, what's your name?" Keith asked.  He was unaware
that as he did so, his hands moved to take a data crystal that the young
woman provided him, inserted it into his console... and bypassed the security
system.

"MacBride.  Abigail MacBride," Jessica responded.

"Well, Citizen MacBride, you've come to one of the most important duties
an officer of the Mental Hygiene Police can serve.  These are the
most dangerous criminals you can imagine.  All locked up safe and
sound and suffering the punishment they richly deserve.  These scum
wanted to be treated as "individuals"?  Well, now they've got their
very own rooms and the individual, loving attention they so wanted." 
Keith chuckled at his own joke.

"I'm glad you enjoy this job," Jessica said very quietly.  "That
makes things... easier."

Alexander Keith cocked his head inquisitively at the young woman for
a moment, and then his eyes widened in surprise as, seemingly of its own
volition, his right hand drew the shredder pistol from its holster. 
His mind was still in shock as his body turned, arm extended, and his finger
squeezed as the sights lined up on a pair of his troopers.

Chaos erupted. The flechettes, as designed, were deadly at short ranges,
and Keith's gun swept over another two of his men while they were still
flat-footed.  Still, the others had combat-trained reflexes, and one
actually managed to draw her weapon before being chewed apart.  The
other three were smarter and obtained cover before attempting to return
fire against the madman suddenly in their midst.  The Believing Drone
probe team had drawn their own weapons by now, and also threw themselves
behind cover along with the MHP guards, as if equally concerned by the
lieutenant's homicidal fury.  The remaining three guards, understandably
focused on the obvious (if inexplicable) threat, only had a half-second
to notice that their supposed comrades' weapons were pointed, not at what
was left of Alexander Keith, but at them... and that wasn't enough
time before four triggers pulled.  Three more bodies joined the corpses
on the floor.

"Clear!"  Benjamin Michaels shouted.

"Clear!"  Jessica replied, and stood up when Andrejs and Mina also
reported that all opposition was dead. The scene she surveyed suddenly
reminded her of some version of Hell, for still sixty prisoners were twisting
and screaming silently and visibly within their spheres, while crimson
gore was splattered over the walls and consoles, and blood was pooling
on the synthemetal floor plates.

Mina, a former Free Drone doctor, stepped over to the main control console,
pushing the slumped corpse aside as she deactivated the punishment spheres. 
Meanwhile, Jessica turned to face the spheres and closed her eyes as she
concentrated, empathically projecting a sense of calm and removing the
pain of the victims.

One by one the punishment spheres opened, and in turn each dazed prisoner
was helped out by two of Jessica's team.  By this time Lars and Jacqueline
had arrived with their laundry hampers; there were enough drone overalls
for everyone. Jessica took a deep breath, stepped forward, and focused
all the strength of her personality.

"Citizens, you have suffered terribly and unjustly, not for any crimes
you have committed against the Hive, but for the crimes the Hive commits
against you.  You have cried out for rescue, and you have been heard. 
You are free.  Not free from danger of recapture and persecution,
but free to hope for and strive for a better future for yourselves. 
Each of you is being given a data crystal.  Each crystal is will give
you a new life - new identity keys, new background stories, new knowledge. 
With these, you can disappear into the community if you so wish. 
With these, you can learn about the promise of a life more eternal than
the Hive can ever hope to offer.  You can learn to be free. 
We cannot stay with you, but we can help you to escape this place and the
Mental Hygiene Police.  The rest is up to you - but now you all know
that there is hope out there, and one day you may see it realized. 
Remember your brothers and sisters amongst Believing Drones, as we remember
our brothers and sisters here."

One of the former prisoners raised her hand.

"Who are the Believing Drones?"

"We are people just like you," Jessica smiled and continued.  "But
we know what it is like to be free, and we want to share that with you. 
And we serve a master who is far more compassionate and merciful than the
Chairman.  That data crystal also holds our Conclave Bible, and all
sorts of information about the world outside the Hive; information that
the Ministry of Education doesn't want you to know."

"What about our old lives, our families?"

"As to your families, each of you will have to choose for yourselves
whether or not it is best for them and you to contact them, or not. 
One of the responsibilities that comes with being free, is freedom of choice. 
There is no longer a Ministry to tell you what to do or what to think,
and I know that can be frightening.  You can even turn yourself back
in to the Mental Hygiene Police if you really think that is best for you. 
But the Ministry turned its back on you when they put you in those spheres;
you will never be able to return fully to the lives you had before, even
if you wished to.  I enjoin you to instead seek a new life,
and in the Conclave Bible you will find out about the new spiritual life
that we have embraced and that you are free to embrace as well."

Jessica held up her hands to forestall further questioning.

"I know you must have a hundred questions, but I'm afraid we don't have
much time.  There is a general evacuation going on in this level,
and with your new IDs and overalls, you should be able to disappear in
the confusion.  But we have to leave or risk recapture.  Follow
our people outside."

The prisoners moved with alacrity. Whatever their thoughts, none of
them wanted to be present when the Mental Hygiene Police returned; and
Jessica's team separated and moved out of the complex swiftly.  Ten
of the former prisoners came with Jessica, but one in particular caught
her attention.  At first glance, there wasn't anything special about
him - he seemed fit and strong, like most drones, but his eyes moved about
with alertness and intelligence as the group moved, as if he were constantly
assessing their surroundings.  His arms seemed relaxed, but Jessica
noted that his wrists were bent slightly and the fingers were extended. 
Jessica knew that pose.  Whoever this man was, he'd had unarmed combat
training.

Once outside, Jessica quietly wished good luck to each of the former
prisoners and watched them disperse.  The man she'd noticed also was
about to make his way off, but she touched his arm as he turned.

"Excuse me, Citizen...?"  Jessica prompted.

"My name is Tim O'Reilly.  Thank you again for rescuing all of
us, but I think you're right about us needing to split up quickly lest
we draw attention.  Good luck to all of your team."  The man
squeezed Jessica's hand and turned again, but Jessica shook her head.

"I think we should probably stay together after all.  You might
be able to help us, and I think we should try to help you."

Jessica concentrated for a moment, and nodded.

"Yes, I can appreciate your concern, but there are things you need to
know.  My real name, by the way, is Jessica McCollough.  And
yours is Frank Lancer."

---

Two Hours Later

Jessica arrived at Team Mark's rendezvous with Frank Lancer in tow. 
Benjamin Michael's eyebrows rose as he took in the newcomer, but he said
nothing.

"Everyone, I want to introduce you to Lieutenant Frank Lancer, from
the United Nations of Planet.  Lieutenant, this is my team. 
Maybe you should tell us your story."

Frank Lancer raised his eyebrow inquisitively.

"I thought you knew it all by now?"

Jessica shook her head.

"No, I only 'read' you because we were in a hurry and I needed to know
if we could trust you.  But once I found out who you were, I stopped. 
I don't believe in reading an ally's - or a friend's - mind without their
permission.  So you need to decide whether or not to trust us."

Lancer nodded and made his decision.  He didn't know much about
the Believers or the Drones, although the U.N. had been on good terms with
the latter - but he did know that both of them were implacable enemies
of the Hive.  And since the enemy of his enemy was his friend,
well....

"To make a long story short, I was the leader of one of two multifactional
teams that were sent into Hive territory almost a year ago to capture and
retrieve a Progenitor alien for questioning.  Things went wrong and
everyone was captured or killed.  I suspect we might've had an intelligence
leak or even a mole, but I'm the only one left.  Before we got taken
by Yang's agents, we did manage to download a fair bit of data about
the aliens from Yang's datalinks. Yang's men disabled my MMI, but much
of the raw data is still buried in my internal databank. I'd like your
help in getting out of here and returning to the nearest U.N. base so the
Axis can get at that data."

Jessica shook her head.  "I don't think we can do that... or rather,
I don't think that would work," she amended as she noticed Lancer tensing.

"You see Lieutenant, the U.N. has officially declared a peace treaty
with the Hive, and has withdrawn from hostilities towards the aliens."

Lancer was astonished.

"Impossible!  The U.N. sticks by its allies - and making peace
with the Hive?  After they flagrantly violated the Charter?"

"I'm afraid so," Jessica confirmed.  "There's been a change of
government - Lal is no longer Commissioner.  Actually, truth be told,
the General Assembly itself is splintering.  Several bases and units
have defected to the Hive.  Most are remaining neutral; some units
have independently thrown in with the Axis.  We even have some U.N.
air units at Great Conclave."

Lancer pondered for a moment.

"Well, my team was sponsored by the other factions too.  If you
can get me to the Gaians, or even Sparta...."

Jessica shook her head again.

"Both factions are under direct assault by the aliens and the Hive right
now.  Velvetgrass Point is in ruins, and Sparta Command itself is
under siege."

Lancer paled. "They'd told me that when I was in the sphere, but I thought
it was just propaganda and disinformation."

"Unfortunately, in this case at least, the Ministry of Education was
actually telling the truth.  I think you should probably come with
my team to Great Conclave.  From there Sister Miriam can put you in
touch with a number of important people - Marshall Allardyce, maybe - or
send you on to Morgan.  His bases at least aren't under attack - for
now, anyway.  Will you come?"

Lancer nodded grimly.  "It seems I have little choice."

Benjamin Michaels signalled to Jessica that he wanted to talk to her
in private, so she excused herself and stepped aside with the Believer
captain.

"Sister Jessica - we only have stealth suits and jumpjets for seven
people.  If we take Lieutenant Lancer along, one of us will have to
stay behind," he warned her.

"I know that, Benjamin," Jessica acknowledged.  "I will stay, and
you will take our people home."

"Sister - I know you feel responsible for the team, but we can't afford
to spare you.  Brother Sven may be dead, and you're the only other
leader we've got.  Let one of us stay; any of us including myself
would be willing, if this Lancer's information is as important as it sounds."

Jessica shook her head.

"No, Benjamin. You're wrong about not having any other leaders - I know
that you are qualified.  But I've decided I have to stay.  You
see, even after all our briefings, I was never truly prepared for what
I found here in the Hive.  The suffering, the brutal repression of
individuality and freedom.  Even the people we freed - probably more
than half of them will be re-captured, and for the others, what's the point
of turning them loose with no-one to teach them or to help them? 
So for us - for me - to have any moral credibility here, I have
to stay.  I'm not speaking as the leader of Missionary Team Mark. 
I'm speaking as a minister.  I feel the call here, Benjamin. 
You understand - and so will Sister Miriam."

Benjamin Michaels nodded once, slowly.  He wasn't happy with Jessica's
decision, but if there was one thing that Believer society accepted as
universal, it was to respect the call.  As he watched  Sister
Jessica inform the others, he could see the same feeling on their faces
- regret, but also respect, understanding and encouragement.  One
by one each of them hugged "their" minister, and then they briefly held
hands while Jessica led them in prayer one last time.  As the team
headed for the maintenance elevator, Jessica shook Frank Lancer's hand
as well.

Jessica traced the sign of the cross just as the elevator doors closed,
and then they were gone.

Now she was alone.  Well, not quite alone.

"The Spirit of the the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord
has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to
bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release
from darkness the prisoners," Jessica quoted to herself and smiled.

[Hydro]

Sparta Command

Submind Two knew almost endless patience, but now that patience would no longer be needed. The command had come to attack.

One of his comrades activated, rising a few more meters into the air as his legs came to battle readiness. The reverse articulation changed in a fluid motion in the front, where the legs bent outward. It started moving forward and a fraction of a second it was moving faster than many organic eyes could likely follow. Leg movement blurred and the ancient battle mech flowed across the edge and into the city. The outskirts of the alien city was already littered with debris, both from ruined or partially ruined structures but also from the debris of war machines. None of this mattered to the mech, who either sidestepped large objects, stepped over objected it judged to be innocuous, or simply blasted anything that might activate its threat algorithm. Blue and read pulses were emitted at unpredictable intervals, and at targets that were far from obvious. At one side a tree erupted into shards and superheated water turned to steam, creating an organic bomb of formerly living shrapnel. A thin red beam sliced to and into a low building, and there was a muffled explosion from within. An orifice opened in the front of the Battle Ogre. Moments later the air seemed to shimmer, and twist. This pulsing wave of disorientation lanced outward, creating a vortex that drew in loose objects, and it intersected the side of a Spartan building. Immediately the dun colored, massive building wavered and seemed to bend, expanding around the resonance wave. Then it simply disassociated, as if the parts were repelling each other, and it flew apart and away from the resonance beam. A resounding boom reverberated from the imploding building. Debris and dust washed over the mech, and he disappeared from view.

Submind Two observed this with a detached eye, an analytical eye. He had seen this sequence repeated thousands of times. Although each time the details were different, be it a different planet, foe or time, the cause was the same: a conflict of wills to be decided with violence. Submind Two understood this, and his role, and this gave him patience.

In a few moments it would be his turn. Battle would be joined.

*~*~*~*

“Eng, forward. 20 meters, left. Crouch and roll. NOW!”

A compact woman in gray rose up from behind a low mound of rubble, standing and leaning forward until she was almost crouched over. She clutched her projectile weapon with one hand, using the other to steady herself as she pivoted her feet up and over a crumbled column. As she went over she used her arm to push her even further and, for a moment, it looked like she was flying. But only for a moment. She landed in a roll, tucking at just the right time, and came out in a sprint. She darted left and took up her position along the edge of the recreation commons. Looking forward, carefully, she tried to discern what was in the billowing dust that was wafting over her. Stifling a cough, she nodded once.

All clear.

Mich pointed at two more in her squad, and snapped a motion toward Eng. There was no hesitation. The two figures leapt forward, avoiding shards of metal and glass with quick twist and somehow finding purchase on the sifting ferrocrete that was still hot from whatever had ripped it apart.

The tall figure broke right, disappearing into the fog of dust that hung in the air and covered everything. The other went left of Eng and took up position on her flank, crouching and tense.

Two more quick gestures, and two more were in a run to either side, one crawling up a high pile and over a partially intact wall, and the second racing after the tall man that had vanished into the swirling white.

That’s all of them, Michelle thought, only me left.. She got up, ready to jump up and over, and had just placed her hand when a red beam stabbed, down through the white fog. It hit near where she had been hunkered down. From above.

She mentally berated her two-dimensional thinking, running all the time to complete the rolling formation. As she did she could feel the shadow, and detected movement above her and to the right. A small explosion lit up the white murk, and a roaring din of masonry being propelled and impacting all over, and simply falling, filled her ears. There was pain, and an impact on her shoulder that spun her around. Another impact that forced the air from her lungs and her long stride was vectored away as the kinetic energy of the ferrocrete took over, sending her directly away from the explosion.

Another impact, this one very hard. It hurt. Mich repressed it, and activated her tranks. It was barely enough. A lot was broken, but it didn’t matter. She knew she had to move. Just a little more.

*~*~*~*

Submind Two relied on a series of partial sensor readings. Nothing worked as it should. His visuals were degraded by the billowing ferrodust, which created a strange arcing electrical pattern that played off the vaporized metal. In short, it was nearly useless. Auditory was somewhat useful, although there was enough background noise to attenuate any of indicator of his quarry by over 70%. EM and infrared was similarly degraded. All he had were fragments of each, and fitting them together was an interesting challenge. It took a second instead of nanoseconds, and it tested his mettle.

He knew his targets were all around him. Beneath him, to be exact. It was an interesting gambit, and it was oddly refreshing to not be able to simply incinerate or disarticulate the enemy. By playing beneath him he was limited to unused secondary weapons, and maintenance lasers. Pretty poor stuff, but more than enough for these warriors. Fast and mobile, they seemed to be where they could not be. A challenge.

Still it was a one sided challenge. His initial analysis had been correct, even though he had checked it over several times. These warriors had no armor, and no weapons to speak of. Even so, they had inflicted minor damage to one of his servos in his fifth leg, a weakness he hadn’t realized he had.

Interesting.

Submind Four to Submind Two: More movement detected, and auditory indicates left. Firing.

A small explosion ripped into the wall of the recreation commons, which was long since roofless. Masonry slid down as the support for a roof truss finally gave, sheering off at ground level.

Submind Two slaved Submind Five to move them out of the way of the growing avalanche of iron and false rock.

!!!!!

A *****! There? How?!

Another burst of fire heated his reverse articulated servo on his fifth leg again, degrading it performance by another 10%. He vectored the fire, locked, and returned. It had fired from directly beneath him.

A small, involuntary scream started and was cut short.

There was a human shout, and a whine. A series of explosions shook the ground in and around Submind Two, and at the edge of the massive ferrocrete building. The explosions were not his doing. He felt something unusual: a tilting, and loss of control, as if he were being lifted up.

It was a delay, just an instant, but it had been enough. The west wall of the recreation commons shifted, twisted, and sloughed downward. Fragments of plasmasteel beams that had held up the roof now tilted into the air, above the cloud of white, like fingers scratching from beneath a while cloud. The rotation continued and the remaining bulk of the massive building disintegrated, forming a wash of debris that slid downwards.

Submind Two could feel the impacts, and the tearing. The rush of mass pushed him off his legs and away, carrying him. Legs pivoted to keep above the churning mass. Ancient metal grinded, and legs snapped. Subminds Three and Five gave an electronic spark of surprise, then went dark.

Register: distress, shock.

Then silence. Relative silence amid the white.

Interrogate: status, augment.

In moments Submind Two knew his status. His fifth leg was destroyed, two others partially immobile, and two subminds inoperative. Armor near the fifth leg was rent. Functional status was down to 40%.

Submind Two assessed his situation. He could free himself of the debris, and return, as was ordered.

He slaved Submind Four to complete a threat analysis. Result: none; enemy destroyed. Surely buried.

As Submind Four finished the needed permutations, Submind Two pondered what had happened. His enemy was strangely mobile, had almost no armor, and had pitiful laser weapons. They were no threat. They had maneuvered under his main weapons, and danced to avoid sure death from even his secondary defenses. Then, the series of explosions. From where?

Then he keyed in on the high whine. It had the signature of a fusion reactor on overload.

It made sense. It explained the four explosions, the catastrophic failure of the building, and the damage to his leg.

Interesting. Another unique gambit he hadn’t considered: self-immolation. He would consider that in the future if his odds for survival were so vanishingly slim.

He picked his way up and over the rubble, and in a few minutes he made his way out of the white mist of ferrocrete dust. His sensors cleared.

What he saw was a vision from ancient days, when Progenitor fought Progenitor. There was fighting everywhere. Lines of mechs were moving, as if in slow motion, against squads of obsolete rovers that fired searing bursts of what had to be shard fire into the flanks and rears, seemingly wherever they were weakest. Submind pondered: for ‘obsolete’ technology they were performing as well as a hovertank. Mechs crumbled, taking rovers with them in fireballs as they went.

To his left other mechs were dealing with infantry with their great siege guns, which were laying in their fire and moving with unnatural speed into the banks of mechs. The spread of light was impressive, and it tore into the mechs. Chunks of metal glowed, and then were blown away by continuing fire. Defensive fire decimated the infantry, and as he watched a siege gun imploded as a mech leg skewered it before it could fire again.

Above him inelegant aircraft were battling to the death with the Deathspheres. Light, sound, and the searing embrace of resonance waves filled the sky.

The true battle had begun.

Submind Two felt right at home.

[senatus]

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

King Henry V, Act IV, Scene 3

Sparta Command

The Recreation Commons exploded outwards with a shockwave powerful enough to shake the surrounding buildings, but deep within the Strategic Planning Center, the lights didn't even flicker; and "Colonel" Corazon Santiago, President and Supreme Commander of the Spartan Federation, didn't even blink as she addressed the half-size holographic projection of Salvadore St-James.

"They've penetrated the perimeter defence. The local civil defence squads are pinning them down for the moment - or rather, are providing enough targets to occupy their attention. I imagine the photon defenders will be an unexpected and hopefully unwelcome surprise. Your units are in position?"

Sixteen kilometres away, the Gecko nodded, not needing to consult the tactical plot beside his rover's command seat. Both General Timothy O'Brien and his second-in-command had died last week battling the aliens, although Rolling Thunder's foray had been a success.  Rao Kosaru was the most qualified candidate, but was too junior in his role to exercise command of an entire division.  So St-James had assumed the role of Rolling Thunder's brigade commander, with Kosaru as his tactical officer.

"That's affirmative.  All the enemy unit positions are being fed to us real-time.  We're ready to go."

"Then do it, Salvadore."  Santiago's command rang tersely in the Gecko's headset.  He turned to Kosaru.

"Activate targeting designators.  Pick out two targets, one for each of our shard rover divisions."

Two of the progenitor battle mechs now had green circles with crosshairs superimposed on them on St-James' display.  Another four had green circles with amber crosshairs a moment later as Mel Cassaroni's Lightning Strike divisions downloaded their own target designations to the rover's battle computers.  A sudden hum of fusion-powered machinery filled the cabin as over a hundred rovers accelerated towards Sparta Command.  A countdown appeared in the bottom-right corner of the main tactical display as the ETA of engagement diminished.  St-James had slightly less than four minutes before contact, and he used them to review the events leading up to the battle to analyze for any patterns he'd missed.

After the first preliminary probe that had left four of the alien mechs burning - and killed O'Brien - the aliens had mustered all their forces.  This time, whoever was in charge of those forces had decided upon a coordinated assault, emptying out of Janissary Point and Hero's Waypoint to converge on Eastguard.  St-James' original plan to hit their forces while divided had fallen through when the alien skyships had taken up air interdiction above the converging columns, again illustrating a certain amount of caution and diligence on behalf of the enemy commander; unexpected given the nature of the original assaults.  Perhaps the Spartan early victories against the probe had given the aliens cause for caution.  That was dangerous, since the overall Spartan plan was predicated upon overconfidence and mediocre tactics on the behalf of the enemy.  Normally, St-James would never have approved a plan that required the enemy to be overconfident, but this time they'd had no choice - the odds were so poor for Sparta that they needed a break to achieve even a marginal victory in the long run.

So instead, he'd withdrawn from Eastguard, leaving behind only a skeleton garrison of volunteers to man the ferroconcrete bunker complex and buy time for the retreat.  Against the forces now arrayed against Sparta Command, a static defence was suicide, and even the new photon defenders would not hold out long against the alien weaponry.  It ran against the grain to withdraw without even firing a shot, but at least this meant that he had all of Rolling Thunder's and Lightning Strike's divisions intact for an assault on the aliens as they engaged Sparta Command's defenders.

"In range!"  "Fire!"

Fusion-powered particle accelerators threw ultra-dense shards of plasma steel at incredible speed into the Ogres, gouging terrible wounds in the alien armour.  It pleased St-James to see that Spartan weapons development had, in little more than a hundred years, exceeded the best weaponry of old Earth - and, it seemed, was more than enough even against the resonance armour of the aliens.

"One, two,... four aliens destroyed, two with heavy damage, Sir."  Rao Kosaru reported calmly.

"Good, Major.  Find me two more targets for the pens.  Interceptors, stand by to interdict those enemy fighters," St-James ordered.  He knew as well as the interceptor pilots what the outcome of the last dogfight between Sparta's best and the alien fighter craft, but ultimately their job was to protect the much more vulnerable needlejets as they prepared to hammer another pair of mechs to scrap.

In the depths of the Strategic Planning Center, Santiago leaned forward suddenly to examine the holographic theatre as she punched in a query to the Command Nexus.

Salvadore's tactics are good, I understand his plan, but maybe....

There was no time even to allow the Command Nexus to process her query.  If she was wrong, this would be a disaster.  But if she was right....

"Command override!  Rolling Thunder Needlejet Wing Two, hold.  Wing One, continue your run.  Interceptor Wing: Abort."

What the?  St-James thought as he heard Santiago's orders.  He looked at Rao Kosaru to see if the tactical officer had noticed something that St-James hadn't, but could see a mirroring confusion in the younger man's eyes.

Without interceptor cover, that pen wing is dead meat, St-James thought, and his face was grim as a moment later three of the pens exploded as the enemy fighters tore through their formation.  The other nine twisted about in frantic evasion.

"Needlejet Wing Two, engage as previously specified," Santiago ordered, and St-James frowned in further disbelief as his commander ordered the second Rolling Thunder bomber wing to join the first, virtually committing suicide.  They were trying like Spartans, though, to hit their targets despite the apparent insanity of Santiago's orders.  Trying, and dying.  The alien fighters flitted about like bushido-drama warriors cutting down their vastly inferior foes.

In the Strategic Planning Center, Santiago's eyes registered the dead and dying Spartan pilots, but her mind was already four steps ahead, running on instinct and orchestrating commands even faster than the Command Nexus could.

"Rolling Thunder units... seventeen through twenty, come to heading forty-eight, no, fifty-one degrees, maximum velocity.  RT units thirty-one, thirty-five, thirty-six follow at fifty-meter spacing.  Wang, roll 2nd Armour Division around the Bio Labs on the east and elevate guns, activate air tracking now.  All interceptor wings, track and engage target on this heading...."  Santiago didn't have time to rattle off the aerial coordinates, instead simply drawing her finger over her touchpad, leaving a matching trail glowing in the Command Nexus master projection.

St-James sat up straighter as his mind began to see the same possibilities that Santiago had.  She'd ordered specific units from Rolling Thunder to break their current formation.  Relatively obsolete Chaos Gun units.  Relatively obsolete anti-air Chaos gun units.  And Wang's Shard Rover division was also anti-air.

Near the Biology Laboratory Complex, one of the silvery ovoid "ghosts" - alien hoverships - "blinked" into position faster than Spartan sensors could track, but continuing the pattern of destruction it had wrought previously.  It began to focus the devastating singularity laser at its target... and then suddenly lurched violently to the side as hundreds of shard projectiles smashed into its port stasis field.  Smoke began to billow from the nigh-invulnerable stasis shield, but the alien hovership was clearly still operational.  It instantly turned towards the new attackers on the ground, rotating the
compromised stasis shield away from Wang's units - but in so doing, presented the weakened shield perpendicularly to the Rolling Thunder rovers, who threw their peculiar chaos waves at the hovership.  Two seconds later, the Spartan interceptors joined the fray, and assailed from all sides, the alien battleship seemed to simply vanish for a moment... and then a tremendous explosion rained energy and plasma down from the skies over Sparta Command.  Later analysis would show that the Deathsphere had imploded into its own singularity reactor, then when the reactor shut
down, exploded outwards again.

"Yesssss!" Private Annabelle De La Croix cheered in exultant triumph, then quickly stifled herself with embarrassment over the un-Spartan outburst.  The various Civil Defence scout infantry units were less disciplined, and she could hear them cheering loudly on her communications channels.

The aliens, on the other hand, seemed enraged.  Even their Ogres fought in cybernetic frenzy, vaporizing their enemy whenever the huge guns scored a hit.  The alien Gnats spun about, furious to have been suckered, and tore after their Spartan counterparts, ignoring the few surviving bombers.

"Scatter plan Epsilon," Santiago ordered, and the Spartan interceptor wings took flight as the three Gnats bore down upon them like some vengeful god.  Three eye-tearing flashes in the sky signified the deaths of their first three targets; the rest dove towards the central headquarters sector of Sparta Command, as if trying to use the tall, blocky buildings for cover.  The alien pilots knew their own advantages, however; the Gnats were easily able to follow and immediately did so.

Suckers, Santiago smirked, as those same incredible fighters found themselves charging through a sheet of antiaircraft fire as the AAA photon squad finally revealed itself.  Between the forwarded data from the Aerospace complex and their own high-speed ballistic tracking computers, their short-range defensive gunnery was dead
on; the alien fighters - virtually invincible battling opponents in the air - suddenly found themselves facing the massed, perfectly-preplaced fire of entrenched infantry on the ground.  Two more explosions marked the death of the lead Gnats; the last one survived and retreated from the airspace, trailing smoke.  The Spartan interceptor pilots smiled coldly;their comrades had been avenged tenfold in tactical value.

St-James also permitted himself a cold smile.  He could see from his Command Nexus projection that despite their heroic efforts, his Spartans were still taking terrible losses.  But they'd expected to take terrible losses; the best they could hope for was to inflict measurable losses in return to the aliens.  Virtually every human able to carry a gun was fighting; Sparta Command's entire populace knew full well the fate of the residents of Janissary Point and Hero's Waypoint, and were determined to die on their feet.  The Civil Defense was fully mobilized; dozens of poorly-equipped reserve squads were still rushing towards the perimeter almost as fast as they died, and they were buying St-James' rovers extra time to repeat their attack runs, raking the slower Ogres with their shard and chaos batteries.

[senatus]

The battle continued for hours as the aliens slowly but inexorably crushed through their opposition.  The Spartans had fought well, even downing another of the ovoid hoverships, but there had been no more runaway victories like the last.  It seemed that the aliens were now fully committed to a frontal assault and were willing to take whatever losses were necessary to kill their enemies, and they had the force advantage.  Hui Wang and most of the 2nd Armour division was destroyed; Lightning Strike was down to 42% power and Rolling Thunder was little better.  The last of St-James' interceptors had exploded after a suicidal run at a hovership, and he knew he no longer had air cover.  The aliens still had four of their hoverships and nearly half their Ogres, and the elite photon defenders were finally succumbing to the alien juggernaught.  It would only be a matter of minutes, now, before Sparta Command fell - what was left of it, that is.  The streets were strewn with Spartan dead; the surface buildings were smoking piles of rubble.

The Strategic Planning Center was operating on emergency power, now; even sheltered deep below the surface with meters of plasma steel surrounding the Command Nexus, many of the tunnels that Santiago knew intimately from over a century of meetings with the Junta had collapsed.  The tactical display was grainy now, as dust speckled the holographic images.

"Honshu to Santiago.   Fallback position at Westguard is ready."

Santiago nodded at her onetime nemesis' image and she pulled on her battle helmet.  One of the Headquarters guard handed her a shard rifle and she looked at the Command Nexus one last time.  This would be the last time she gave orders from here, she knew.

"Santiago to St-James.   Time to go.  Take one last pass and fall back to Westguard.   I'll see you there."

"Acknowledged,"  came the Gecko's reply.  Santiago started moving, and now spoke into her suit mike as she ran down the escape tunnel, her footsteps and those of the Guard echoing in the corridor.  Never thought I'd be using this passage for real, she thought.

"Santiago to Bisset.   Are you still alive, General?"

"Yes, Madame President," Xavier Bisset spoke from the Tactical Planning Center.  The recent revivifications had not been kind to Bisset, and without recourse to the regenerative treatments that 99.9% of the Junta was able to take for granted, he was now confined to a wheelchair.  Nevertheless, he was in full battle regalia, and a laser rifle was balanced across his knees.

"I am prepared to do my duty, Madame.  I will relay tactical data for as long as possible.  Good luck, 'Colonel'.  Victory in battle."

"Sparta will long remember, General," Xavier heard in response.  He turned to the tactical screens, built so long ago that they made use of liquid crystal displays rather than holographic technology.  He was pleased to see that Cassaroni and St-James had survived.  That was good.  Sparta would need them both almost as much as Santiago.  Bisset also saw that the last of the photon defenders had been obliterated after a courageous last stand.  Now, the enemy were coming for him.  They would be here in minutes.  He wheeled his chair around to address a squad of the Headquarters Guard.

"Members of the Guard," Bisset spoke.  "You have served loyally and well.  Sparta Command has fallen, and it is time for you to save yourselves."

One of the guards shook her head, and spoke for the others.

"We stand or die with you, General.  Long live the Junta!  Long live Sparta!"

"Long live Sparta!"  The others shouted in unison, and Bisset bowed his head in acknowledgment.  The squad moved out to take a final position near the command center's outer entrance.  The guard who had first spoken stayed with Bisset, and trained her rifle at the doorway.

"I am very proud of you, Angelique," Bisset said quietly.

"Thank you, grandpere," his granddaughter smiled, not taking her eyes or her aim away from the door.

An explosion rocked the command center, and there were shouts and firing.  Then the aliens marched into the room, their alien armour shimmering with resonant energy, their rifles trained at the two last defenders of Sparta Command.

"Long live Sparta!"  Xavier Bisset cried, as he pulled the trigger of his laser rifle.  The aliens' energy bolts tore through the old man's body, but he felt no pain.  Bisset died with a smile on his face, and as he died, a signal from his life-support unit reached the computers of the Command Nexus.  Powerful explosive charges rocked the sublevels of Sparta Command, as the Command Nexus self-destructed.   Bisset's executioners died only microseconds after he did.

---

Deathsphere Alpha

Conqueror Zzar surveyed the remnants of the Invader city on his sensors.  The only signs of life he saw were those of his own troops and the Ogres.  Deathsphere Gamma, Delta, and Zeta took up the remainder of his diamond formation, battered but victorious.

As Marr had ordered, so Zzar had obeyed.

Sparta Command had fallen.

 

[Hydro]

Sparta Command, now Conquest of the Weak

Submind Two was stationed along the eastern flank of the tumbled ruins of the Invader city. Billowing smoke and flame rose like randomly place black and red columns that rose up and then bent east, converging over the entire region to give it a dark pall like a ceiling. Light was down to 55%, and it appeared to be dusk. At random intervals he could detect echoing explosions as the demolition crews finished exterminating the remaining Invaders, and as he watched one of the few remaining squat towers twisted and collapsed, adding another black and red column to the black ceiling that hung low overhead.

Movement triggered attention to his left just behind a damaged building. There were a series of low figures that rose up, dashed a few meters, then slunk down in the rubble again. Individually it wouldn’t be anything, but since there were hundreds of them it looked like the entire landscape was infected with small jumping fleas that darted up, over, and then down again.

He activated Submind Five to do a threat analysis, and in moments he had his answer: retreating Invader non-combatants. This had been a big city, strange and alien, and it contained the Warrior Invaders. Many had fought tenaciously, but tens of thousands remained, bereft of everything but their pathetic lives and they were apparently were trying to leave by any means possible. Although most were unarmed he had his orders, which came directly from Marr himself: exterminate. None were to escape.

Submind Two activated his resonance bolt, feeling the trickle of power rise. His subsystems were damaged now, and his firepower now attenuated faster and his targeting had never been this poor – the result of battles and skirmishes since he had arrived on Manifold 6. In reality, these warriors had inflicted almost all of his damage, and he knew it would never be repaired. As he swiveled into position he could feel the warm, satisfying feeling of a resonance bolt at almost full power. He tracked the middle of the fleeing group for maximum effect and superimposed a topographic grid and sequenced his fire, anticipating where the Invaders would move as the assault continued.

His audio sensors shut down to 10% as the resonance bolt sheared into the rubble, creating a linear crater and propelling fragments outward in a lethal trajectory. The airborne debris quickly made many of his other sensors useless, but he continued his firing. After the fifth firing a wash of superheated air blew over him, carrying with it a blast of smaller fragments and dust.

It was enough, he knew, and he ceased firing.

Still, even in death these aliens could be dangerous. He had seen some of the non-combatants immolate themselves when their destruction was immanent, so that even in as they died they hurt their enemies. These were tenacious. Nothing was wasted.

He had to wonder at the new name for Marr’s city: Conquest of the Weak. An interesting name, if somewhat misapplied.

Rubble settled, and wind dispersed the airborne dust. This little disturbance wouldn’t add much to the black and red pillars and ceiling that formed above him.

Submind Two resumed his patrol.

*~*~*~*

Conquer Zzar could smell the pheromones, a veritable reek that came from all the surviving Progenitors as they came back from battle. With the pheromones were not subtle resonances of battles, and of what had been seen. The combination was intoxicating and it had already overwhelmed some of the lesser warriors, who were now almost senseless.

His warriors reveled in their victory. The Invaders were crushed, their strongest place taken. Evidence was all around.

Yet, Zzar didn’t feel victorious. Much had been lost, including two Deathspheres and gnats; these could not be replaced. Half of his battle ogres were destroyed, and the rest damaged. His infantry would recover, but many were destroyed.

Zzar altered an imperative, with got the attention of everyone in Deathsphere Alpha. The cacophony of resonance stopped, and every Progenitor filed outside without a word. In a few minutes the command deck was clear.

Calming himself, Zzar submitted his talons to the reader and willed it to interrogate Courage: To Question. A slight tingle of the full sensory holo activated, and he withdrew his talons to stand fully erect, as was befitting a Conqueror.

And he waited. He waited calmly.

Hours passed, and Zzar continued to stand at attention. Finally an amber light played into the interactive holo, but Conquer Marr did not appear.

Now Zzar knew fear. The Conqueror did not deign to speak with him in his moment of victory. Perhaps he knew the price of this victory, or has distracted by some other important event. But what event could be more important than this?

Still, he knew his duty.

“Great Conqueror Marr,” he resonated, “I report victory, as you predicted. Your forces were able to overcome the massed resistance of the Invaders at their capital and the city is now yours. As you ordered, it will be known as Conquest of the Weak in honor of this great conquest. We have almost completed the eradication of the weak Invaders, and all those that flee have been destroyed. Even now cloning vats are being set up to repopulate this city with Progenitors, and this will be a forward base to your continued assault.

Amist this victory I have to report that Invaders have denied us some of our spoils. Their grand project the Command Nexus was destroyed, evidently by demolition charges as our infantry secured their last stronghold.

I await your orders, Great Conqueror.”

Zzar cut the interactive feed. In a way he was relieved that Conqueror Marr had not interrogated him since it would likely have been unpleasant, and he had enough troubles to deal with at this moment, such as reigning in overzealous warriors who were likely to go on a rampage with little thought to coordination. That would pass, especially after the pheromones died down to normal levels and a degree of sanity returned to normal operations. With the others gone the reek in the command module was returning to tolerable levels, and Zzar considered keeping them locked out. After all, for all they knew he was having a long, in-depth discussion with the Great Marr and was not to be disturbed.

He recognized a weak thought when he had it and he shoved that one back where it deserved to be. Sending out a trill, he activated his acceptance of his command staff to re-enter the upper level of the Deathsphere. As they entered a few shot him anticipatory glances, half expecting him to grace them with some wisdom he had received from Marr. Sadly, Zzar knew Marr’s wisdom: frontal assault - crude but effective, but very crude.

Zzar passed a talon over the battle display, which dutifully winked into existence. He saw his mechanicals were eliminating the retreating mass of retreating non-combatants and he suppressed a wave of irritation. He would, and should, have pursued the few fleeing Invaders. But Marr had given him explicit orders: exterminate, and liquidate. As a result almost 20% of the Invader’s mobile force would escape.

Then Zzar felt pain. He looked down and saw that his talons, in a reflexive action, had involuntarily clenched at the thought of the lost opportunity, piercing the leathery chitin on his palm.

Strangely, this made Zzar feel a little better, and for a moment the twisting in his gut lessened. He thought, This is my battle wound.

The thick blood congealed in his palm, and he watched it throb out of his body in tri-pulsing action of his three hearts. Abruptly, he overturned his hand and the blood fell to the floor.

That is the least of the Progenitor blood that has and will be spent, he thought.

[Hydro]

Sea Hive

Chairman Yang reached over and squeezed the soiled scrub rag in the bucket, and gray water dutifully trickled out as Yang squeezed harder and harder. After a few moments no more water was forthcoming and he shifted his stoop and continued his methodical scrub of the hallway floor. A group of six Hivean citizens surrounded him, and they were also stooped and performing the same labor. The only sound was the occasional tinkle of water as it dropped into the dark gray buckets and the slosh of water as rags were cleaned out. Each citizen was clad in identical gray jumpers that were cut in such a way as to be uniformly unflattering. Men and women were difficult to tell apart due to the utilitarian bagginess of the jumper and the fact that almost all had only a minimum of facial hair, including Yang. For all age and sex was indeterminate.

This lot of drones was a cross section of Hive society, and each was performing their scheduled duty of manual labor. Yang was not immune to this almost sacred Truth that all labor was good labor, and that none shall be excused unless a higher duty called. Each labor gang was randomly rotated, and citizens notified of their appointed time and place of service. No one acknowledged each other or their overseer, although one was always present – the labor itself was the point, and the objective. And no one acknowledged Chairman Yang, although he was recognized and each member felt honored to be serving with the Chairman. This was proof of their egalitarian society, where at a basic level all were equal.

Yang himself had instituted this practice at the very beginning, at the conception of his drive to form a perfect, utopian society bereft of distractions of class and inappropriate material possessions. Some in the Hive leadership did not agree with this practice, but these did not survive long. Those that did not embrace the ideals of equality and egalitarianism were fairly quickly weeded out and re-educated to a more appropriate task. Menial tasks. The only exception was Aashandi.

At that thought Yang squeezed his rag a little harder. His back and forth scrubbing of the floor did not pause, and only the most astute observer would notice any change in his placid demeanor.

A group of seven men and women walked down the hallway, buckets and rags in hand. They stopped, still in formation, for a moment and then kneeled to start their labor immediately adjacent to Yang’s stooped group of drones were working, taking up where the other group had finished. As soon as they had started their scrubbing Yang’s group rose as one and walked back to the assembly area in this sublevel. Their supervisor took up position in back of them as they walked at a brisk, uniform pace. The buckets did not spill a drop of water, and their formation was semi-formal but noticeable. Order was preserved.

*~*~*~*

Yang felt rather than saw or heard the summons. It was a little uncanny, almost like the abilities Lady Skye was reputed to have. Still, it had happened a number of times and his ‘sense’ had not failed him.

He stood up and waited. A shimmering appeared in front of him, and a holo coalesced into the image of a Progenitor. By its markings it was a sub-Conqueror, and it was at one of the Usurper bases based on the architecture visible within the holo frame.

Yang knew what this communication was about – the capture of Sparta Command. Interesting, Sheng-Ji Yang thought. This is one of Marr’s minions, and not even a member of the command staff. So I, his loyal human, do not even rate an official pronouncement of their moment of victory? I wonder what this portends for us. His mind worked furiously, assessing the viable permutations. Knowing what he did of these Progenitors he knew that status is everything, and that alone spoke volumes.

“Invader Yang: attention required. Conqueror Marr: destroyed Invader Spartans, Invader forces crushed, defeated. Invader city Conquer Marr’s. This victory: proof of Progenitor supremacy. You will watch, you will learn if alien brain can comprehend. Attention: now,” the figure said.

The holo changed, showing Sparta Command from the air looking toward the west. It was a sprawling dun colored city that looked like a series of low, truncated pyramids. A few buildings stood out, those in the capitol complex and some of the larger residential towers. Most were simply massive and squat, and forbidding in their own way. In this view there was substantial movement toward the city’s outskirts. Yang recognized them instantly as the mechanicals, or Battle Ogres, and they moved with a flowing motion that made them look like they were floating above the ground. Following these were rank upon rank of Progenitor infantry, marching in knots similar to human divisions. Hovering high overhead were gnats, both bombers and interceptors, which looked like a swarm of circling crows at a far altitude, although any crow would be envious at their maneuverability. Last in the formation were the vaunted Deathspheres, and Yang deduced that this holo had been taken from one of these.

“Now: attack begins,” the voice of the Progenitor pronounced.

Yes, the attack was beginning. There was movement all along the edge of the city, but it was moving outward. Yang almost smiled. It was the Spartans that were attacking, not the Progenitors. Bright bursts of light erupted from entrenched Spartan infantry, and these lances of light transfixed some of the mechanicals as they advanced, gauging wedges out of the advancing line. Little silvery ants swarmed out from a few points, and these had to be the Spartan rovers, their elites. Even from this distance it was clear that they were moving many multiples of the speed of the mechanicals, and the mechs found themselves encircled. The flowing advance stopped and brighter lights erupted into and through the front ranks of the Progenitor mechs and infantry as the rovers fired in a classic Spartan shoot-and-scoot fashion.

Within minutes the first rank of Progenitors was decimated, and a series of spectacular explosions rippled across the plain. Once in a while the backwash even caused some turbulence for the observing Deathsphere. Yang’s eye caught new movement as the Spartan air force lifted off, flying almost straight up to gain as much height as they could. The gnats, which had been hovering, descended like birds of prey. Now lights played within the air as well as the ground, but this time it was clear the Spartans were getting the worst of it.

Yang stopped watching the details and tried to take in the larger picture, the strategy and tactics of both sides. On the ground the Progenitor forces were stunned, and were not moving much past the defensive perimeter. The slower mechs tried to move in to fill the voids created by those the Spartan strikes had eliminated, cutting off the rovers. Yang knew that would fail, and it did. The rovers simply maneuvered where they were not. There were hundreds of rovers and, almost as one the wheeled around and struck outward again into the heart of the Progenitor infantry.

That got Yang’s attention. A blunder? Maybe a suicidal death charge?

No. The Progenitors reacted, pulling away from the perimeter to encircle the rovers. Then almost all of the rovers turned, almost in place, back toward Sparta Command while some of their counterparts struck with blinding force into the advancing infantry in the second rank. Where they struck the defenders staggered, and great gouts of smoke, light, and explosions followed. Progenitor siege guns ruptured, as did some of the rovers, and the mechanicals closed in.

As they did the bulk of the rover force raced back unopposed toward the perimeter of Sparta Command, and relative safety. The Spartans had executed a feign of a feign, sacrificing a third of their force and causing the attackers great losses, and to be out of position.

At other locations along the perimeter the Progenitor mechs and now infantry were slugging it out. The line bulged, inward this time, and some of the mechanicals advanced into the outskirts of Sparta Command, spewing resonance death to defenders and buildings alike. The force of the overall advance closed in where the rovers had cleared the field. Sparta Command was encircled again.

In the air most of the gnats were engaged, slaughtering the Spartans. Here the technological superiority of the Progenitors was showing, and it was not pretty for the Spartans who lost 3 to 1. Soon it was at least 5:1 as the numeric forces were outbalanced after almost all the gnat interceptors had their field day. Yang knew the feeling of growing desperation he knew the Spartans must be feeling, since the Spartans had done this to his air defenses during their blitz of his territory. The air broiled with confusion, and at the periphery Yang could see that the Deathspheres could not resist the tumult, striking in to join the slaughter. And the Spartans gave way before them, almost as if the waters of the air were being parted. The Spartans seemed to be retreating, yielding up their airspace.

Yang’s eyes narrowed. That was wrong.

As he watched the lead Deathsphere gave chase, wreaking havoc. It picked up speed and it crossed over into the edge of the city.

And Deathsphere staggered, almost as if it had hit a plowed into an ocean. It was sheeted with a blinding wave of antiaircraft fire that washed over it from every direction. The retreat reversed, with the remaining interceptor pilots pulling seemingly impossible U-turns as they turned to attack, adding their fire to the stricken Deathsphere. There was a pulse of blackness, and a contraction that seemed to suck in light, then an enormous explosion.
Yang was stunned, and he realized he was holding his breath. He had seen it with his own eyes: the death of a Deathsphere, impenetrable and almighty.

A quad of Spartan interceptors broke off and was joined by some ungainly chaos interceptors, who flew off fast, low and away from the battle. Yang was puzzled again, but only for a moment. While their comrades sacrificed themselves to keep the infuriated gnat defenders busy, these interceptors were making a b-line for one of the second Deathsphere that now hesitated at the edge of the battle, just beyond the city perimeter. They fell on it hard. The first few were swept away, but then one and then another gout of flame erupted from the Deathsphere as its singularity shields simply couldn’t take the strain of repeated direct hits. More Spartans died, and a few more hit home – one hit on the Deathsphere from the death of one elite Spartan interceptor pilot. The Deathsphere reeled, sinking toward the ground rear first. An obsolete chaos interceptor fired again and again, straight into the damaged flank. Defensive fire from the Deathsphere pierced the interceptor, which held together for a moment and then exploded on top of the Deathsphere, which vanished in the wash of heat and flame. As the flame cleared the Deathsphere was still there, but it keeled over to its side and sank at an increasing rate toward the ground, throwing out great gouts of purple flame and smoke. As Yang watched it seemed that a great bite had been taken out of its flank, but that bite kept growing and as Yang watched the Deathsphere just disappeared. It had consumed itself, maybe from an out of control singularity.

Back on the ground the Spartans were losing ground, but making the Progenitors pay for every meter. Yang could see lightly armed and armored defenders race out to engage, harry, and delay the attackers, and do it successfully.

“Invader Yang: watch the end,” the voice said.

The scene changed. The outskirts of Sparta Command were fully engulfed in flame, and the perimeter defenses and defenders were gone. Pillars of black smoke rose as the invaders systematically reduced the city to rubble, destroying everything. The remaining gnats were strafing the city at will, although most had returned to base. Building after building crumbled and fell, and the city seemed to be rolling up as he watched. A series of vehicles were taking off vertically from the center of Sparta Command, which still stood. They angled upward and then to the west.

Those are jump pods. Sparta Command is being abandoned, Yang thought. He counted as rapidly as he could, and it looked like mainly elite rover and infantry were lifting off, most likely the 469th infantry and at least two divisions of attack rovers.

Usurper infantry were advancing en mass, with the damaged mechanicals semi motionless along the former perimeter of the city. Destruction continued for tens of minutes. It was clear that the invaders were still facing some opposition, and that they were heading irresistibly toward the most massive, but not the tallest, building in Sparta Command – the Command Nexus, the heart of the Spartan empire. More destruction, and more pillars of black rose in the air until it looked like a forest of black tree trunks with a black canopy.

Then Yang’s impassive eyebrows went up. As he watched the Command Nexus puckered inward at the center and, in slow motion, fell in on itself. Another huge column of smoke and ash started to rise.

They destroyed the Command Nexus, he thought, to prevent it from falling into Marr’s talons. Scorched earth. Leave nothing behind. Commendable.

It was over, although Yang watched as more and more columns rose into the air. It went on for hours, but he dutifully watched as he was commanded. As he did he remembered that he had almost incinerated Sparta Command with a planetbuster, and he would have done so had not other distracting matters intervened. He would have willingly obliterated the entire city, like he had ordered the vaporization of two Spartan-held former University cities as a demonstration. Given that, what did he feel? Not much. The Spartans had fought well, and had inflicted grievous harm on Marr, although Yang suspected that Marr himself didn’t quite understand that yet, and maybe he never would. As expected, the Spartans had concentrated their firepower and emptied his continent of their forces while the Usurpers dawdled to prepare their assault. The Spartans had sacrificed many of their most experienced forces in a seemingly futile defense of their capitol, only to lose it in the end. Or, did they lose? It depended on how you define lose. Surely Marr thought he had won, but what did he have to show for his battle?

Pillars of smoke. That is what he had.

If anything Yang felt a certain satisfaction. The Spartans were weakened, but had escaped with much of their ground forces. It was unclear if Santiago had survived, but Yang was almost certain that she had. She would never give up, he had know that when he had hired her back before Unity had lifted off. It was a desirable, if unpredictable, talent. But, more importantly, Marr had been damaged. He had lost simple and replaceable infantry in his disastrous assault on Velvetgrass Point, where Yang had been very content to sit and watch its destruction. This time he had lost most of his army of formidable mechs, and the rest damaged. At least two of his terrifying Deathspheres had been destroyed. And his army and airforce was mauled. The only faction that could do that was the Spartans, and he had arranged it. The Spartans and Usurpers were significantly weakened. That he was free to retake what was his from the Spartans, Believers, Drones, and Gaians on his continent was simply a finishing touch.

The holo winked out, with the last scene being the last of the Spartan towers collapsing on themselves.

“Invader Yang: observe proof of Progenitor superiority. Great Conqueror Marr: demands obedience. Will order soon. Obey: alternative death. Submit,” it ordered.

Yang turned his gaze to the image of the Progenitor. He gave it a slight bow at the waist, then straightened, making eye contact for just a second. It was a calculated insult, since the Progenitor gesture of obedience was to bear one’s soft throat underneath their head crenellations. A submissive certainly did not make eye contact, even for a fraction of a second.

The Progenitor’s image trilled, and then paused, obviously considering this Invader. It chirped once, and the translator was not able to find the correct words to translate this with respect to human anatomy. Then the image winked out.

Yang stared at where the image had been. Let them think of me as simply an ignorant and backward human. That serves my purpose, he thought to himself.

Then he returned to work. There were many pressing issues, internal and external. Some, like Aashandi, he viewed as a greater threat than the so-called Conqueror Marr.

[Hydro]

Morgan Industries

CEO Morgan looked into the polished black veined marble wall, leaning just close enough so he could see himself clearly. Looking himself over, he picked an errant piece of lint of his navy suit, adjusted his vest, and fluffed some of the lace at the cuffs of his shirt.

He stood back and looked again. Now I’m ready.

Turning, he walked over to the polished inlayed bronze doors to the council chamber. The doors opened soundlessly at his approach, and he entered the room. There was silence except for the clicking of his paten leather shoes on the salt-and-pepper granite floor. As he approached the other Board members rose.

“Please, be seated,” he said with casual grace as he gestured to their seats around the long and brightly lit table. Morgan approached his chair, which was slightly larger and subtly more ornate that the others, but did not sit down.

He turned toward his advisors, who were the elected officials from each of the Morgan municipalities. Leaning forward, he put on hand on the upper portion of his chair. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. I’m sure you’ve heard the news about Sparta Command.”

Morgan paused and looked into the faces to make eye contact with of all the Governors. All had strained expressions of shock and fear, but all were composed. All Morgan managers functioned well under pressure or they didn’t hold their high stress jobs for long.

“We knew it was coming. The aliens had been building up for months, slowly and methodically, and it was clear that they were going to attack Sparta Command. Now they have. I have a bit of news for you, and an action plan that I want you to vote on. First the news. We have intercepted a transmission from the alien city Courage: To Question to Sea Hive that was intended for the traitor Yang. With your permission I’d like to play it for you in its entirety.”

He made eye contact with all the Governors again, and each gave a solemn nod. After breaking eye contact with the last woman he directed their attention to the left side of the table, pulled out his chair and sat down. The lights dimmed, and the image of the Progenitor Yang had seen played out. The Governors watched as Yang humbled himself to this alien, and a few angry murmurs swept through the darkened room. It was clear that Yang was the willing vassal to these monsters. Then it commanded him to view the destruction of Sparta Command.

There was silence in the Boardroom as they watched the Progenitor army’s advance. As the burst of firepower started a few gasped, but these turned to cheers as it became clear the Spartans were busy blasting the front rank to scrap, rending and tearing with abandon. More cheers as the Spartan air force took flight. Feign, and counterattack. The rovers dashed for home, and the Governors cheered them on. There were gasps as the Spartan air defenses retreated and the gnats and a Deathsphere rushed in for the kill, then more cheers as the Deathsphere imploded, then exploded spectacularly. More dogfighting, where the Spartans were clearly losing. Then the gallant drive and the destruction of the second invulnerable Deathsphere! Cheers!

Throughout Morgan was silent, but he was watching. But not the holo. He was watching his Governors.

As the holo continued the Spartan victories stopped, and the tide turned. The Spartan air force was swept from the sky, and the city started burning. Waves of infantry pressed in to replace those that were destroyed or disabled. Gasps of fear involuntarily escaped from the Governors as first one, then two, then dozens of soaring pillars of smoke rose.

And the aliens advanced.

Then they heard the Progenitor voice, “Invader Yang: observe proof of Progenitor superiority. Great Conqueror Marr: demands obedience. Will order soon. Obey: alternative death. Submit.”

There was no angry growl now. Just more silence.

An hour passed, and before it was done the vaunted and seemingly invulnerable Sparta Command was gone. The last thing they saw was the implosion of the Command Nexus, a final act of defiance. There were no cheers, only a single low simultaneous groan of disbelief.

The holo ended, and the lights came back on. Morgan stood, pushing his chair to the side. He leaned forward, placing his extended fingers on the polished wood of the conference table. All eyes turned expectantly to him.

“Who can we fight this?” he asked. It was clearly a rhetorical question, but one that was on all of their minds. “This is a tragic defeat for our allies the Spartans. We have placed our hopes in their ability to defend themselves, and by extension us, from the ravages of these aliens. And it seems they have failed.”

Morgan paused again. “Or so it seems. Look closely and you will see signs of hope. First, look at what they destroyed. They took the pride of Marr’s army and air force and almost fought it to a standstill. They destroyed at least two Deathspheres, which every military planner said couldn’t be done. Most of their mechanicals are damaged or destroyed. His army is in tatters. His air force damaged or destroyed. And,” Morgan paused for effect, “you will notice, at the end, that they evacuated their best fighters to fight another day. Fight another day.

Now, I’d like to play you something else that I just received.”

Morgan swiveled and sat down. A holo appeared to the left again.

“Friends and allies,” the familiar figure of Santiago said, “I give you a short message. The Spartan cause is still alive, and we view the events of the last day with both pride and regret. Many brave men and women sacrificed themselves, and everything they know and love, to defend what was theirs, knowing their fate. But, they did this willingly for they wish to defend our way of life, and the lives of all humans on Planet. Our capital may be gone but we will fight on. We will honor the memory of the fallen and use this memory as an inspiration for the future, the future that they died to protect. We will not fail them. We have found that the Progenitors can be beaten, even as they seem to be victorious. We all have hidden strengths, our natural abilities. Use them. Do not hide. Strike where and when you can, for we are many and they are few. Together we can stem this tide, and together we will persevere.

Now, I must go. I have a battle to fight. And so do you.”

Santiago’s stern image winked out.

Morgan scanned the faces again, and many were surprised, but most were simply stunned. Morgan resolved to removed that stunned look and replace it with something else.

“Ladies, gentlemen, the Coronal is exactly right. We have our hidden strengths, and we will use them. I have two proposals for you.”

Morgan passed out a pre-programmed data pad, and each of the Governors accepted it without looking at it.

“This is top secret information I am giving you. These datapads are encoded and keyed to self-destruct, so no recording devices will be able to document what is written on them. Please activate the pads.”

Each member did so.

“This is my first proposal. We will continue supplying Santiago with the energy she needs to maintain and expand her fighting force, and she will have no lack. After this we still have a reserve, which we have been loath to tap since our conflict with Yang and the near destruction of Morgan Bank. This project that I propose will require the construction of an aircraft carrier,” he said as he pointed to the first line item. “It will also require that we allocate every supply crawler in our land toward a special project, one that we are uniquely suited to construct and use. When completed it will hurt Marr in a way that he can scarcely comprehend, and probably has not dreamed of in his worse nightmares.”

Morgan waited for a moment as the Governors waded through the bare details of the proposal. One elderly man from Morgan Pharmaceuticals abruptly put the pad down loudly on the table and looked at Morgan with a pained expression. The others, who were slower readers or just a little slower than the old researcher, just looked up from their datapads and then to Morgan.

Morgan smiled. “I see you understand. This will require extreme sacrifice. We will not only have to lose the resources the crawlers have provided us, but we will have to scrap some of our more expensive buildings that are not economically oriented. For instance, our research hospitals will all be scrapped. The new fusion lab at Morgan Bank will be scrapped, too, since it can not be fully effective since Morgan Bank is still suffering from Yang’s crippling nerve gas attack. These sacrifices will allow us to strike back, and strike back hard.”

The Governors were entranced. Few had ever seen this almost maniacal fervor in the CEO’s normally calm eyes. He held all of their gazes.

“Unless you want to surrender to Marr,” he said almost casually.

He couldn’t have gotten a more visceral reaction if he had reached out and slapped each across the face. Each new, in painful detail, what happened to those in humans who happened into Marr’s loving care.

“I call for a vote,” Morgan said. “I move that we enact my first proposal, to be implemented immediately. Phase 1 will be completed within the next few weeks by marshalling all of our resources, and Phase 2 within the month. Do I have a second?”

The old director from Pharma was the first to recover. “Second,” he said in a surprisingly strong voice.

“Voice vote. All in favor say ‘aye’.”

A chorus of ayes rang out.

“All not in favor say ‘nay’.”

Silence.

“Abstentions?”

Silence.

Morgan smiled, his bright white teeth contrasting with his dark brown skin and steel gray hair. “The ayes have it. Motion approved. Now, for my second proposition I’d like to invite two long time friends into our chamber. I know it is against all policy, but considering the circumstances I think it is appropriate.”

He didn’t ask for a vote on the procedural change, and paused only long enough to give the impression that the Governors had the option of objecting. None did.

“Come in please,” he said to the air. The great bronze doors opened, and two figures walked in.

“I am sure all of you are familiar with this august pair, but let me introduce them anyway. First there is our old security advisor Andre, long time trusted advisor to this board and the mastermind of amazing feats of bravery. Second, and certainly not least, is the vaunted Rose. These two have a long history,” he said, savoring the double meaning. In truth, the two hated each other. “And together they have done the impossible – penetrate Yang’s Aashandi’s Circle and cripple it, and helped infiltrate the aliens. I believe that our lovely Miss Rose has an interesting proposition. Rose?”

Rose smiled delicately and inclined her head slightly to Morgan, and then glanced to Andre. He was silent, but at least his body language wasn’t hostile.

She walked toward the board so that she would be under a spotlight and fully visible. She turned her hand palm side up and extended it. A Progenitor vehicle, much feared, appeared above her palm – the Deathsphere.

“The Spartans managed the seemingly impossible. They destroyed two of these Deathspheres, which are the pinnacle of the alien technology. Nothing that we have can defend against them, and the Spartans destroyed one at great cost to themselves. Could we so?”

She paused, still holding the image of the Deathsphere.

“No. So what do we do?”

She paused again, and her smile grew by centimeters.

“I have an answer, and its right up my and Andre’s alley.”

Rose looked around the room. She had everyone’s undivided attention.

“I’m going to steal a Deathsphere.”

[Googlie]

Temple of Chiron

Cyrus Peake tugged at the collar of his dress jacket, trying to smooth the bulge where the translation yoke sat on his neck. He hated this device, even although it was much more compact than the early models. The materials were now synthsilk, so much more comfortable, the resonance baffles now arranged much like a cravat at his throat. And they concealed the throat mike that picked up the vibrations from his own speech and translated them into the resonance waves understood by the Progenitors.

Usually it was Canla that wore the translator when they met – the Progenitor equipment was micro, fitting just behind one of her receptor flaps – it was easier to capture and render the crude human speech patterns into resonance, much like a child’s first uttering squeals might be. The transmitter that converted the Progenitor resonances into a crude facsimile of human speech was but a simple wrist apparatus no bigger than one of the 21st century timepieces that Cyrus had seen in the old vidflicks.

But they had developed a sign language that they used when neither was yoked – simple communication, and she had entered his quarters giving their agreed upon sign “yoke up and come with me.”

He turned to her, sensing the tension in her stance and asked:

“What’s the hurry? Where are we going?”

His cravat tickled under his chin as the baffles caught her resonance and he felt the bones in his shoulders vibrate from the transmission through the yoke.

“To the Nexus” the resonance hummed deep within his bones.

He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“It’s Conqueror Marr,” the slight alteration was caught by his yoke baffles.

“Go on,” he said, as he switched off the holofeed he’d been playing of Chairman Yang’s latest communication to him. He left his cubicle and followed her to the waiting vehicle.

“It has been more than thirty turnings,” she went on, the concern manifesting itself in the choppy resonance “since he shut himself in the communications room – hasn’t eaten since he found it, but more to the point no orders are being given to the commanders in the field.”

It was the longest speech that Cyrus had ever heard the young stochastic give.

They boarded the rover and Cyrus remembered how uncomfortable these much larger seats made him. He felt like a kid at crèche dinner sitting in a high chair as he strained to see through the viewports.

“Why can’t an aide just take food and drink in to him?” asked Peake

“He’s entombed in some strange cocoon,” she altered. “Like he is sleeping, except he is resonating and his limbs are jerking as he lies there.”

Cyrus saw just how concerned she was.

‘This sounds strange,’ he thought to himself as they sped along the road linking Temple and the Nexus.

*******************************************

As they entered, Canla motioned to Cyrus to keep quiet, lest Conqueror Marr be disturbed.

One look at the recumbent Usurper told Peake everything he needed to know.

“It’s a VR environmental suit,” he said, the yoke carrying the translation to Canla, who gave her Progenitor version of a “so what” shrug.

“He’s wired through an MMI interface to the nexus computer itself,” he went on. “I’ve seen vidflicks of old Earth where people donned such netsurfing suits. If the rig is typical, it should be able to display dynamically exactly what he’s doing. And he’s getting nutrients thru the suit – the cocoon - itself”

Canla pondered that, then altered:

“Nexus. Animate.”

The huge holotable to the right of them flickered, then the room darkened. Cyrus and Canla sat down on nearby seats, and watched in awe.

******************************************

Judaa Marr sat at the command console of what appeared to be a Progenitor Battlecruiser.

He was addressing his onboard intelligence.

“Show me The Beserker”

The view shifted to a spatial overview, and there, just rising from the surface of Harmony, was the great Caretaker Battleship.

“Zoom” came Marr’s resonating command.

The view shifted as though a remote observation gnat were flying down the length of the battlecruiser. The resonance deflector shields were clearly visible, being deployed as they always were during its most vulnerable phase – the liftoff from a planetary surface. Then the weapons pods came into view. The ominous shape of the string disrupter cannon could be seen secure in its antimatter housing, flanked by the singularity torpedo bays. The view panned down past the rows of Hornet ports, for the deployment of their aerial defense system,

Amidships was the telltale bulge of the battlecruiser’s singularity powered reactors, linked immediately aft to the Vizorium-5 fuel tanks that were themselves shielded by the huge resonance augmentation baffles that took and amplified the thrust , like the afterburners that were shown in the old vidclips of the ancient terran aircraft..

“Threat analysis?” came Marr’s throaty inquiry.

The view shimmered, then a new shape appeared on the holo – a differently configured ship, older, more battle-weary.

Canla tapped Peake on the arm, and Cyrus felt the yoke vibrate as she resonated excitedly “It’s the Impaler. Our flagship.”

Then it dawned on her, and she turned agitatedly to Peake:

“It’s the decisive battle of the Succession Wars – the Impaler versus the Berserker. Marr’s father commanded the Impaler – Marr himself was a weapons officer serving on it. The Berserker was commanded by Kenal K'esh, the broodmate of Conqueror Marr’s lifelong enemy, Guardian Lular H’minee. It was the Usurper’s greatest defeat, and it looks like Conqueror Marr is going to relive it to see what went wrong.”

“Sheesh,” muttered Peake. “How long did the battle go on? – He’s been out of circulation for over three weeks now, and things are heating up here.”

“Over thirty turnings” Canla altered.

“Another month,” Peake exclaimed. “We can’t have that. Call him out of it”

“I daren’t do that,” Canla retorted. He is my commanding officer.

Peake looked at her levelly. “Do it,” he commanded. “Your race’s future depends on him being at the helm.

She wavered.

“I can’t”, she said. “It is more than my life is worth.”

“Then will the computer obey me?” asked Peake.

“If I command it to,” she altered.

“Then do it,” said Peake.

Canla hesitated, then squared her shoulders.

“Nexus,” she resonated.

“At your service,” came the deep alteration of the system.

“Take your orders from the earthling, Peake. He will command you.”

“We await instructions,” came the disembodied resonance of the Manifold Nexus.

Peake hesitated, then took the plunge:

“Shut down the simulations and pull Conqueror Marr out of it.”

There was a slight pause, then the holo faded, and the room went quiet.

A soft humming of machinery took over, and they watched as the node connections and wires snaked away from Marr’s cocoon, and the nutrient and life support connections withdrew.

The sensory pod opened, and a puzzled looking Judaa Marr sat up and took stock of his surroundings.

“Welcome back, Conqueror,” resonated Canla

He regarded her coolly. Then turned and looked at Peake.

Back to Canla.

“Why did you recall me?” he altered.

Peake jumped in:

“You have been out for more than thirty turnings, reliving the past. The present needs you. Your troops have won a phyrric victory – if you know what that means. A hollow victory. You have gained your objective of capturing Sparta Command, but at horrendous loss of personnel and materiel. Your people need your leadership. While you have been indulging your fantasy, your warriors have won a battle, but may have lost the war.”

As Marr caught the resonance, shaped it and absorbed it, he grew agitated, mandibles fluttering.

“You will never understand,” he altered. “Your kind cannot. I have been discoursing with my father – and his advisors. They have shown me what to do.”

“And that is?” Peake interrupted, causing Marr to look up in anger as the harsh resonance hit home.

He turned to Peake: “Deal the invaders a blow from which they will never recover. Now help me up and let us go to the Command Center.”

They followed him out of the Manifold Nexus to the waiting rover.

[Hydro]

Morgan Industries

From a distance it looked like thousands of tiny fireflies were buzzing lazily around in the night sky. The course of each light was erratic, and just as a light appeared, it disappeared, winking on and off at seemingly random intervals. Most of the tiny lights were yellowish white, almost points.

It was a beautiful illusion that only held if you refused to hear the din of vehicles, clanging metal, and the high whine of pulses of electricity and fusion torches. The points of light, upon closer inspection, were not random at all, just focused on fast moving robots that flew frantically over their charge. Hoverbots literally swarmed along the construction dock, rising into place, fusing their bit of metal or electronics into place, or applying their nanogel or pre-configured components. These dutiful robots worked untiringly round the clock, and were the height of technology, each one worth more than a mid-sized corporation’s CEO’s net worth.

A trio of suited figures watched the seeming pandemonium with spyglasses or remote holo cameras from the staging office at the base in the upper tier of the drydock as the work progressed. The figure on the left was slightly rumpled, and her suit had long since given up its wrinkle free air of perfection for an unsightly unkempt look. Still, Senior Engineer Marian Clause was beyond caring at this point, and a disheveled suit was the least of her concerns. This was the fastest and most complex design-construct job ever in the history of Morgan Industries, and it was her baby. More accurately, it was her head if it failed. She would be lavishly rewarded of coarse, but Marian couldn’t afford to be distracted by such thoughts now, although they were firmly in the back of her mind.

The view in Marian’s VR goggles jumped back and forth to the current critical choke points in the project – the fusion reactor assembly in the propulsion system and the autolift in the carrier deck, and the amalgamation of seamless, rounded hull components. She keyed in on bot N25-CN, noting it was lagging in her abstracted system display that was superimposed on her field of view. In a split second she rode into its tiny brain, and saw the problem – a malfunction in its secondary altitude adjuster, which meant that it simply could not maintain its place accurately enough to finish its task. With a blink she dispatched it, and called in one of her few reserves.

She felt her stomach grind as her sys display reminded her, again, that she had only 15 spare bots left of that type. At the rate they were burning out she would be forced to use some of the obsolete units or, worse, actual human workers. More troubles, and more delay. The inefficiency of actually having to communicate with real workers made Marian’s skin crawl. Still, it had to be done. With another blink she called up a worker list, and queued the replacements, bid for their services, and authorized their contracts with a retinal scan, shunting this task over to her senior project manager in one of the other control stations. Marian hated the waste of time; there was so much to do, so much.

“…and this will a fully functional carrier, able to service and operate a full wing of pens or ints.” the first blue suit said, waving his left arm dramatically toward the hull that was silhouetted by the firefly lights of the swarms of worker bots. “Our proposal was well within the RFP, which required, among other things, a deep pressure hull for full submersion. Imagine – a carrier that can operate as a submarine, and a huge one at that! We have contracted to have this submarine carrier to be operational two weeks from now,” he commented casually and pointedly. The other suit turned toward him, clearly impressed, or at least that was the practiced expression he put on his face. “This completion will increase the profits in this quarter for Morgan Shipyards by 235% with this project alone! In addition to the expected startup and completion bonus, and the nullification liquidated damages contract, this integrated design-build has a progressive end date achievement bonus that is measured in days, and a 50% markup on expenses and subcontracts. There was no restriction on subcontractors, or bidding arrangements. CEO Wong-Ingredson was told by CEO Morgan himself to get the job done, and hang the expense. And we will.”

The gray suit whistled silently to himself as the P&L statements that spun through his mind became pure profit, and no loss. The markups on materials alone on this project would guarantee the margin for this quarter for all of Morgan Shipyards!

One of the firefly lights that buzzed around the carrier brightened briefly and suddenly, and Marian groaned. Not only had the bot exploded, but it had taken a uniquely fabricated section of hull with it. She toggled a replacement, and called up her integrated timetable to make sure this loss wouldn’t severely disrupt the installation of the third rotor.

Marian groaned again, and her fists clenched.

The suits didn’t notice.

[Googlie]

Sea Hive ~~ level 13
Central Intelligence

Early Afternoon

Bree cleared her throat somewhat self-consciously as she approached the corner cubicle. The nameplate on the shoulder high wall was partially covered by his jacket that he’d slung over the corner, and all she could read was simply Research Officer. But she knew that he was significantly more important than her immediate supervisor and she didn’t want to startle him.

The scuttlebutt in the recroom was that he was somewhat of an empathy, and Bree had to admit that she often found disconcerting his ability to steer conversations in exactly the way she wanted them to go – but other than that she had no first hand experience of his displaying any empathy talent.

He was engrossed in analysis of a holo model that he had brought up over the workspace table, moving his hands through the air to activate his system commands and rotate the model – it seemed to Bree to be of some alien weapons system.

“That’s a good omen,” she thought. “Exactly what I want to talk to him about.”

He looked up from his work as he heard her discreet cough, and his face broke out into a grin of recognition:

“Ah, Bree, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Don’t tell me – Alien desk, no?”

She nodded again, somewhat impressed. She had met him maybe five times in all, usually at staff meetings, and he hadn’t seemed to notice her at all.

“So what brings you here?” he asked.

She hesitated, then bit the bullet:

“Sir – we think – at least I … I - think, that you need to see what we’ve – I’ve – deciphered these last few hours. It’s fairly important, and standing orders are to interrupt you when we come across something like this.”

“Okay – spill the pearls – what have you got?”

“Sir, if you don’t mind – could you set up a secure office and I’ll project it and translate. – it’ll take a couple of hours. And my instructions are that only the Duty Officer and I are to be in the know. ”

He regarded her. His imperceptible pre-cognitive empath wash as she approached him had revealed her to be the technician who manned the Resonance Sweep Array, and undoubtedly she had picked up something of import.

He nodded.

“I’ll follow you to 117 – I’ll just reserve it and shut this test down”

As he turned back to his equipment he took his jacket from the partition, and she saw his name:

Kurt Weiss

################################################

That Evening

Kurt stood by the guardrail of the uppermost level of the sprawling floating city and watched as Prime slowly slipped under the ocean to the west. The weak evening sunlight of Secundus cast long weak shadows as it too began its disappearance.

The lights of the aerospace complex to the east began to take on prominence as darkness fell, somewhat obliterating the myriad of stars that were now appearing, and the steady hum of fusion engines carried over the water to the habitation dome, signaling more activity and traffic between the Hive and Progenitor bases.

He turned to Bree, standing quietly beside him.

“Do you have family here?” he asked. “Mate, parents, brothers and sisters?”

She thought that an odd question. Was he trying to come on to her, she wondered?

“No,” she replied. “I was paired, but my man was killed in one of the Spartan skirmishes. He was a needlejet pilot.”

Kurt nodded. “We lost many good citizens to that senseless conflict.”

Bree looked around. This was almost seditious. But the deck was deserted. Along the walkway could be seen the lazily revolving turret of one of the silksteel AAA garrisons, as their early warning radar swept north to southeast to cover the hills around Fecundity Tower, Drone Mound and Manufacturing Warrens, to anticipate any threat from these sources. Above that she could see the plethora of dishes and arrays that scanned the horizon and received and transmitted the respulses and commlink busts. She could identify the MorganNews dish, and there, behind it, was her own, mated to the Hive Hydroponics Satellite, that intercepted every Progenitor resburst both to and from Chiron.

Kurt looked at her.

“We must tell them,” he said simply.

She looked up at him.

“Do you think the Chairman knows?” she asked.

Kurt pondered that question. He doubted it. If Bree had indeed told no-one but himself, he certainly hadn’t passed it up the line. And the Chairman had not been present at the progenitor meeting.

“I’m sure he doesn’t, but we can’t take any chances. I’ll prepare a secure crystal for him and send it to him by courier rather than transmit it. He’ll need to get a translator to help him.”

“I could do that,” Bree answered.

“Afraid not,” Kurt replied. “I need you to come with me. They won’t have the technology to translate half as effectively as you can in person. That’s why I asked if you had family or ties here. The repercussions to our defection might be painful.”

“Defect?” Bree shivered. “How? To where? Why?”

Kurt probed her mind gently, letting an empath tendril permeate her mind, assuaging her fear, helping her deduce that indeed this was the right course of action – the only course, really, and that it was, to the contrary, not defection, but ultimate patriotism, for the greater good of the Hive itself.

She nodded.

“You’re right. But how do we get ourselves and my equipment out of here? And when?”

“I have contacts – they’ll come pick us up – we just have to be at the rendezvous point in time – the Advanced Weaponry Facility will do nicely, I think.”

“How will we ever get past security?” Bree asked, becoming somewhat agitated.

“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Kurt replied. “I’m an Empath – a Compellor, we’re called. I can make them think that it’s the Chairman himself who is walking past them, and that you are Judaa Marr.”

Bree shuddered. So it wastrue.

Kurt continued:

“Go get your stuff. Meet me back in 117 in an hour – I’ll have made the arrangements by then.”

He squeezed her hand and they left the observation deck.

################################################

Free Drone Central

I was scrolling down the casualty list from Sparta Command when ‘Jinty’, my all pervasive electronic assistant, chimed with her soft English accent:

Code magenta…code magenta …incoming transmission from Agent Phoenix. Commencing security lockdown and sweep

I sat up, and hastily turned off the system display before Jinty could do any damage.

The room darkened, and I sat still, as the various secure area sweeps commenced, and pondered the alert. code magenta was a “my eyes only” message – I’d set that up some time ago But who the heck was Agent Phoenix?

Confirmed secure. Link and initiate. Burst is two seconds with realtime approximately four minutes – link will remain in stasis for reply

I reached around and felt for the MMI connector, and fumbled at the back of my skull for the contact point, and steeled myself

There was a brief flash of pain, then the room brightened and I was sitting across a table from a holo of a long forgotten young man. The holo spoke:

“Allardyce. When you sent me into deep cover we agreed that if ever I found something momentous enough to change the course of the wars, or the peace, you’d extract me.

“I have just such information.

“I will make my way to the Hive Advanced Weapons Facility with a colleague. Send a chopper there – I’ll disable or distract the guard – and take us and our equipment off – better send an Empath with the chopper as well. It’s seven now – four hours should be enough.

“Can you do it? You know I do not ask this lightly.”

The holo faded.

I pondered briefly, my last conversation with Kurt coming back to me. The best of all moles – deep within the Hive intelligence apparatus, believed by the Circle to be one of its members. Estranged from his beloved Shauna and daughter Ruth in the name of the greater cause. Of course I had to get him out.

I activated the stasis switch.

“Reply – of course. Extrication at 0200 hours as arranged. Call sign “Jasper. Out.”

I chuckled – Jasper the friendly ghost – just came into my mind as I searched for a codename – just like Kurt – the friendly ghost.

An Empath, eh?

I knew just the man.

But there would have to be a diversion of sorts, to distract their attention.

I left the secure sweep active, and contacted Miles Cavenaugh. Then Trixie.

And pondered what news Kurt might be bringing.

[senatus]

Fort Legion

The mud-spattered soldier walked steadily down the underground
corridor, ignoring the fatigue in her body, the heavy weight on her
soldiers and arms from the sixty kilograms of weapons, armour, and
survival gear. She was a Spartan, after all, and as such was expected to
hold to the same standard that every other soldier of Sparta must meet.
And to set an example for the squad she led. More difficult though to
ignore was the fatigue in her head, the throbbing in her temples. She
hadn't slept in nearly one hundred standard Planet hours, and the stim
doses were no longer having much affect – at least so the bioenhancement
sensors were telling her. In fact, several alarms were displayed on
her MMI, and she overrode them yet again for the third time in as many
days. She still had a job to do, and she'd be damned if she let this
only human – if bioenhanced – body slow her down. Just a few hundred
paces yet to go, but the throbbing continued.

Da-da-da-da. There definitely seemed to be a rhythm to it. Maybe
this wasn't in her head, but some machinery up ahead? A few minutes and
she'd be sure.

Da-di-da-do. Sounded a bit different now. In her head or in
the air? A sudden moment of concern – perhaps she was hallucinating. That
would be bad. Maybe she shouldn't have been ignoring the effects of the
drugs in her bloodstream. She couldn't fight if her judgment was unfit.

Za-di-a-do. Not machinery. A chant. Many voices,
united. Words? The echoing distortion in the long corridor made them
impossible to discern, as yet.

Za-ti-a-go. Not words. A name. She smiled.

San-ti-a-go! San-ti-a-go!

A thousand Spartans, soldiers and civilians, chanted one name in
unison; a rallying cry for the woman who led their warrior faction.

Corazon Santiago stepped out of the entrance tunnel at the head of
what had once been a squad of the Headquarters Guard. Their camouflage
armour was, incredibly, scored and seared by shrapnel and energy beams,
proving that the group had skirmished more than once in the desperate
fighting and retreat from Sparta Command, yet they had survived – a
leader, a squad, and a nation.

Santiago brandished a shard rifle over her head, a gesture of defiance
and determination, and a thousand voices shouted their approval as she
stepped towards a nearby rover, climbing on top so that she could address
the crowd. Slinging the rifle over her shoulder again, she raised her
hands for silence.

"Citizens! Soldiers! Spartans!" Santiago said, and the huge vehicle
bay fell silent.

“The Spartan cause is still alive, and we view the events of the
last day with both pride and regret. Many brave men and women sacrificed
themselves, and everything they know and love, to defend what was theirs,
knowing their fate. But, they did this willingly for they wish to defend
our way of life, and the lives of all humans on Planet. Our capital may be
gone but we will fight on. We will honor the memory of the fallen and use
this memory as an inspiration for the future, the future that they died to
protect. We will not fail them. We have found that the Progenitors can be
beaten, even as they seem to be victorious. We all have hidden strengths,
our natural abilities. Use them. Do not hide. Strike where and when you
can, for we are many and they are few. Together we can stem this tide,
and together we will persevere."

"Return to your duties. We have a
battle to fight." Santiago raised her arm in salute, and now the voices
chanted again as she dismounted and made her way towards the cluster of
waiting officers.

San-ti-a-go! San-ti-a-go!

---

General Honshu successfully hid a grimace of distaste as he stood at
the back of the crowd. They treated her more like a god than a hero; even
though Sparta had lost its most terrible battle. They shouted her name
over and over; even his men – "Honshu's Militia" – were cheering
her with abandon. It was more than ironic that, only a few weeks ago,
Honshu had been almost able to depose Santiago as leader of the Junta
– and the Spartan Federation. Instead, war had come. True war,
with the Federation fighting for its life. And Santiago's position had
become unassailable. That her status as a popular wartime icon was now
absolutely necessary, however, didn't make it any less bitter a pill to
swallow. Honshu was even prepared to admit – privately – that Santiago
had been right and he'd been wrong about how to fight the aliens. Or was
that true? Yes, her tactics had been superb – Honshu himself couldn't
have done better – but the fact that she'd deliberately forced a battle
that they knew Sparta couldn't win – merely as an attempt to
inflict as heavy casualties as possible to the aliens – indicated that,
once again, Santiago's greater strategy was flawed. No, not flawed –
but the objectives were wrong. Instead....

Honshu nodded to himself as the thoughts formed a cohesiveness within
his head. The more he reflected upon it, the more certain he became. It
did not occur to him that he was blinded by his own dogma and dislike
of the woman he'd sworn allegiance to.

"Sir? The meeting?"

Honshu's aide, Poirer, stood at his side, the words interrupting
Honshu's train of thought. Nevertheless Honshu smiled fondly at his
subordinate. Poirer had been with Honshu's Militia for twenty-three
years now, and was completely loyal to Honshu himself. The loyalty of
his subordinates was, beyond all else, what Honshu valued most, and he'd
always felt duty-bound to treat those subordinates with respect and to
look after the interests of his soldiers. His.

"Of course. Let us see what our Commander-in-Chief has to say,"
Honshu said. He was unable to entirely suppress a touch of disdain in
his voice, and Poirer did a quick double-take. Honshu noticed, and forced
himself to look grave and serious, dispelling Poirer's concern.

So, even Poirer isn't immune to Corazon's charisma. Well, at least
he's still loyal to me.