With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Mr Zoat]

14th January 2013
13:14 GMT -1

So. That's a… Thing.

"Lady Sunset? Is something wrong?"

Aelia looks kinda worried. Which means that I let how I felt show on my face… Darn it. Honestly, it's a bit weird that she invited me to see her family's library like this. I know that Grayven and her granddad are allies, but even though she's been living in Doom Mountain for a year I haven't really had all that much to do with her. Unlike most humans, I had an okay understanding of magic so she isn't able to tell me anything I don't already know.

Or so I thought.

Turns out that her family had a whole host of things they don't exactly put on public display.

"Lady Sunset?"

"Oh, no, sweetie." I crouch down slightly so that I'm more at her level. "I just… Grayven was telling me that we've got a… Guest, in the Mountain."

She nods. "Who is it?"

"It's…"

I stand back up, looking over to a warded wall hanging. I think it's a summoning circle you can just roll up and put away once you're done. The spells outside of the circle would actually deal with the residue. I've designed something better, of course, but this looks like they've had it for a long time.

"Is it Princess Celestia?"

I twitch.

"Is that bad? I thought you were visiting her?"

"It…" No, no, it's not… Bad-bad? She's gotten a lot bet-. A lot less-.

Oh, who am I kidding? She's gotten better at not saying things that she's learned will set me off. We hold conversations on a level of 'this grass is dry' / 'rain is scheduled this evening'.

"Lady Sunset, I don't understand."

"Okay, ah…"

Oh, come on Sunset, you're worrying a little girl.

I walk over to one of the chairs and pull it out. Then I sit down and pat my lap, smiling in the most reassuring way I can manage. Aelia considers for a moment, then she walks over and I lift her up before wrapping my arms around her. And I'm a little surprised how easy that was. She's not heavy, but she's not exactly light either. Just another fringe benefit of being a transformed alicorn, I guess.

"Okay, what do you know about Celestia?"

"She was your foster-mom?"

Oh.

Oh, that's a whole lot of baggage I don't want to-.

And… Re-pressed.

"She was my teacher. But… She didn't want to teach me the things I wanted to learn. And she got annoyed with me when I said that I wanted to learn different things, and I got annoyed that she didn't teach me those things, so I went to study with Grayven instead."

"But I don't understand. She's your princess."

"Nope! She was my princess. I'm an American now."

And for some reason the fact that I'm a mare means that I didn't have to agree to getting conscripted to do it. Grayven was against it, but it… It makes a lot of things easier, and I don't ever want to go back to live in Equestria.

Is it pathetic that I want her to offer to make me a princess, just so I can tell her-?

Yeah, it is.

"But she was… Then?"

"Just because someone's royalty, that doesn't mean that they know everything. Even if they think they do."

"Grandfather says that you shouldn't say things like that out loud."

"You shouldn't say things like that out loud if you have to work with them, or if you want something from them. Or if you might want to work with them or get something from them in the future. Since I don't want anything from Celestia and I sure don't want to work with her… Being honest about how I feel works for me. And… Sometimes, being honest is actually better. I bet your granddad has to be honest with Queen Clea about things sometimes, doesn't he?"

"He said…" She gets all frowny as she tries to remember. "'Only…' 'Only if no alternative presents itself'. And then he laughed, and mother and father joined in. I didn't understand."

"I think he means that you have to be careful how you say things to powerful people, but sometimes you really have to be direct. Did your school ever do a fire drill?"

"Where there was a bell ringing and everyone had to go outside?"

"Right. If there was a fire, you'd have to make sure the Queen got out right away, even if she was doing something really important. But otherwise… You still need to get them to understand you, but without making them angry."

"Did you make Princess Celestia angry?"

"Ah… I… A little bit."

What? Twilight's the one who gets her power from honesty.

"Did you say something you shouldn't have said?"

"Oh, yeah. Definitely."

"What was it?"

"Oh, I kept nagging her about teaching me something… She said she didn't know, when she obviously did. But if she was lying about it then I should have realised that she really didn't want to teach me, for… Whatever reason. I should have stopped asking her about it after the second time she refused, and asked about something else."

And carried on researching it myself while she was relieved that she wouldn't have to keep lying to my face. Not exactly a healthy learning environment, and that's why I don't lie like that to my students. I can't believe that she didn't even tell Twilight what Starswirl's Unfinished Spell would do before she tried casting it! Okay, maybe the lecture series is overkill, but Twilight can have a bit of a one track mind sometimes and I want to make sure that it actually gets through.

"So did you say sorry?"

"No. And I never will, because I'm not and she doesn't rule me. She can have all the toady cultists she wants back in Equestria. I refuse to lie or dissemble to her ever again."

"Disumble?"

"No, honey. 'Dissemble'. It means 'disguise how you really feel'. No, the only way I'm going to fix my relationship with Celestia is through honesty. And if she can't do that, then I'll-. I just won't talk to her anymore."

Huh.

"And actually? I can go talk to her about that once we're done here. I'm going to make it real clear how I feel about being lied to, and she can either promise never to do that again and explain why she lied to me… Or I'll ward the portal against her."

"Um. My parents and grandfather say that ultimatums don't usually help diplomatic relations. They just make people more confrontational."

I smile down at her.

"If there's one thing Celestia and I agree on, it's that I'm great at being confrontational."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th January 2013
11:34 GMT -7

I find myself smiling as Grayven's foals canter and gambol about the snow-covered pleasure garden. Luna was right. Seeing him acting as a family stallion puts their relationship in an different context. Whereas before, I only saw the edge of his paternal personality when he attempted to protect Sunset, here I see the full gamut of his private behaviour without… The difficult parts of my own relationship with Sunset clouding the matter.

Though I might actually be more reassured if he was callous in his private life as well. For him to be… This, it implies that he genuinely believes that his confrontational approach is the best to achieve his results, rather than being a natural outgrowth of his usual character.

"Celestia!"

He turns and waves to me, grinning with his… Strangely mobile and ape-like face. One which I possess myself. It has been some considerable time since I changed species, and I find… I find the novelty appealing, even if I cannot say that I am truly enjoying the experience.

He trudges through the snow, a train of sledges bearing half his herd behind him. I think… Now is as good a time as any to speak with him, while his most commendable traits are at the forefront of his mind. I… Lean forward as directed, allowing this armour's flight enchantment to move me toward him without the danger of me forgetting that I now possess only two legs.

Luna's description did not truly do it justice. I remember little enough of my life from before I became an alicorn, and none of it relates to what it was like to have a body like that: to move with four limbs rather than six or how long it took me to learn to fly. Even now I fly only when there is some exceptional need. Most other forms I have used in the intervening millennium had four legs or more, and after today, I think I will leave two legs to Luna.

"Faster, Daddy! Faster!"

While his children appeared uncommonly sombre at breakfast, they have cheered up now. His younger daughters squeal with joy and he jogs at a tiny faction of his full speed, towing the sledges faster behind him. As he reaches me he sidesteps and tugs the rope before letting go, causing them to slide past us with a giggle.

Grayven looks at me and clearly sees something in this face's automatic expressions. Alike In Purpose.

"Alright, Celestia wants a word. Boy, you're in charge."

His eldest son nods, clearly already used to managing his younger siblings. Luna did mention that Grayven disliked not being able to give them more attention, so I imagine that he is fairly used to it. That stirs some of my older memories as well.

Grayven watches his children to make sure that they remain in good order as the eldest colt -his name is Paul- pushes the sledge of the youngest up the slope of a nearby hill and calls on the rest to follow them for a race.

"He's a mature young human."

"I wish I could claim credit, but he was like that when I found him." He sighs. "Some people respond to a horrifying situation by lashing out, and… Some just become the best person they can be, because… Why make things worse?"

"Ah. I see. Luna hasn't told me how you came into contact with them."

"They were stuck on an island after their parents died. If you want more details, ask the boy once he turns eighteen."

"And your eldest daughter?"

"Imagine if you hadn't been able to turn Twilight's parents back into ponies after her entrance exam."

I feel my face move in response to the newly sombre atmosphere. I… Have been fortunate that in the entirety of my life I have encountered no ponies whose abilities lashed out in such a fashion. And few who would lash out with such power maliciously.

"She was too young to really remember it." He shrugs. "And she's hanging out with her friends, which I think is a good sign. Oh, I was wondering: was I supposed to get your permission before courting Luna? I sort of assume that you're head of the family."

"Luna can make that decision for herself. I do have.. some concerns that I was-."

"So who do I pay the bride price to?"

I may not be able to read his expression when he wears that face, but I do have over a thousand years experience in dealing with fools both professional and amateur.

"You could not afford her."

He snorts. "I've seen the Equestrian economy; I can."

"Should I be having that discussion with your father?"

His face relaxes, all humour leaving it.

"No."

"I need to make sure that your intentions are honourable. I have heard nothing about a marriage proposal." I smile as I remember Shining Armour trying to find out whether he needed my permission or not before he proposed to Cadence. "Do you intend merely to dally with my sister until-."

"I'm not going to propose to Luna until my father is either verifiably dead or impaled on the Source Wall. It is my intent that you will never meet him." His eyes flick from mine to his children and back again. "My plan to make that happen is a work in progress."

I breathe in sharply. That is-.

"Would it-?"

"Let me tell you a story about my father. It was his birthday, and a million slaves and tributaries lined up to give him gifts. His personal assistant DeSaad outdid himself: he's managed to imprison a Pain Elemental and a Joy Elemental, and force them together into one. A creature of pure joy exposed to suffering in the most exquisitely horrible way possible, with no hope of respite. And he was delighted… Until his chief bodyguard pointed out that the Pain Elemental was now aware that there was more than pain in the universe, and so suffered less."

Oh.

"The tiny fragment of his evil that he forced on me required the combined power of the Elements of Harmony and-" He raises his clenched hands, displaying his rings. "-the Emotional Spectrum to destroy. And anyway, you don't need to worry." He smiles in an attempt at misdirection. "My people have more advanced prophylactics than yours; I won't be siring any foals on her until after that date."

That… Settles the question of whether or not he and Luna are… Intimate. Perhaps a… Change in topic.

"I am more interested in meeting the rest of your family. After all, I need to make sure that you are from good stock."

"Ah, a reasonable concern for the herd's lead mare. You can meet my brother Scott today if you like, and you spoke to my mother at breakfast. She was the one who looked like someone who survived my father."

A nervous mare who almost faded into the background. I had taken her for a maid.

"Of my other two brothers, one isn't talking to me and the other wants to kill me because he thinks our father prefers me to him. Mother had most of her memories stolen, so we don't know if I've got any-"

BOOM!

"-relatives from that side of the family."

A portal forms in mid-air, and Sunset.. steps through.

Grayven pats me on the shoulder.

"I'll leave her to you, but I'm going to stay in shout-range. We're fairly isolated here, but please don't do anything that will melt all the snow."

I smile in what I think is a reassuring way.

"I shall do my best."

"And normally that would be fine, but in this instance I really would suggest trying to do well. Best of luck."

 

[Mr Zoat]

13th January 2013
17:37 GMT -1

"…grateful to you for showing me your family's records." I bow to Aelia's parents, and get an acknowledging nod back. I know that bows aren't really an Atlantean thing, but I also know that they've been part of the diplomatic party speaking to the American government. They'll recognise the gesture. "I appreciate the trust you've shown in me."

"Oh, nonsense." Aelia's father Daelus shakes his head. "This isn't the Second Era. We're perfectly aware that to a thaumaturgist like yourself almost everything in there is either so dated as to be worthless or so specific as to be irrelevant. We're been thinking of inviting historians to go through the place to see if it sheds any light on Atlantean history."

"Now that Venturia's on better terms with the rest of Atlantis, I imagine that there's been a surge of interest in your people's culture in the rest of the country."

"I'm not sure what a dozen outdated scrying spells would do for interstate relations, but I suppose it can't hurt to write to a few noteworthy historians. Do you need any help getting home?"

"No, I'll just call Jean to open a boom-." No, sound travels further under water. "A hush tube."

"My ears thank you."

I take out my focus crystal and reach out through Earth's thaumosphere towards the crystal with the exact same magic attached to it. Yes, I could.. probably use that as a teleport anchor, but Venturia has a lot more magic research going on in it than Canterlot did, and a lot more delicate equipment. I don't want to damage anything by performing magic-intense spells outside of a shielded environment when I don't have to, and making the thaumosphere my plaything would count. Instead, I wiggle the crystal and use a simple piece of sympathetic magic to make the one at the other end wiggle as well.

The hush tube opens soundlessly a moment later, and I step through into.. my laboratory.

Haaaaa. I can feel Celestia's magic even from here. A slow-burning fire… Contained. Trapped. I wasn't an alicorn when I came to Earth-. Celestia doesn't know how to use magic as a human. As far as I know, her special talent isn't magic, but… That's a lot of magic not going anywhere.

"Jean, can you boom tube me to wherever Celestia is?"

"Certainly, Sunset. Celestia is currently watching Grayven and the children play with their sledges. Boom tube opening n-"

BOOM!

"-ow."

"Thank you."

Don't think about it, just go.

I step through the portal and I'm outside in winter in Denver. I'm binding the concept of unnatural heat and the closed circuit to myself before I even see… Celestia, wearing.. some sort of less evil-looking version of Grayven's armour. Her hair's the colour of her mane, and her armour's the colour of her pelt. I'd-.

There actually are things I'd like to ask her about how she finds it, turning from a pony into a human. Things I'd find weird asking Luna about. But that can wait.

Grayven nods to me, pats Celestia on the shoulder -and whaw is the size difference more obvious when everyone's on their hind legs- and then walks off to give us space.

Okay.

"Hey, Celestia." I start marching in her direction. "You look human."

She does… A human version of that nervous smile she does when she doesn't want to set me off but knows full well that she's going to anyway.

"Hello, Sunset. You do as well." She looks me over. "Grayven asked that we avoid melting the snow."

"It's not that hard to make a spell that keeps you warm without warming up anything else. But that's not why I'm here."

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Why a history book?"

"Why a history..?"

Huh. Surprised that was the first thing I came up with. … Go with it.

"Why was that what got me kicked out. I get it, you had this whole thing planned for me to maybe become an alicorn if that's how things shook out with Luna, but I'd been ignoring your whole plan for months at that point. I clearly wasn't going along with it. But it was a history book. I kinda assumed that you thought I read one of the other books, but when Grayven asked you about it you didn't even bring that up."

She looks away for a moment.

"Did Twilight tell you about Predictions and Prophecies?"

"No? What's that?"

"A book that was part of my plan for freeing Luna. I ensured that a copy was placed in the bookcase in her room in the observatory, and another in the Ponyville library, to ensure that she could discover the information that I needed her to know."

"I.. think you know that I agree with Grayven about that whole thing, but what's that got to.. do…"

Luna wasn't mentioned in a single book I read in Canterlot. Nightmare Moon was a silly story no one really believed.

"It had history in it that you didn't fabricate. It talks about what really happened a thousand years a-."

"No. It just had a different fabrication. Something that would help my little ponies fight Nightmare Moon if my preferred plan came to nothing and I was banished from the world."

…

"Do you ever consider just not lying? How did you even..? Get every single historical record!"

"Slowly. I made sure that the Royal Archive bought diaries when they came onto the market, and made sure that I omitted certain information when ponies interviewed me to ask what I remembered. I also had control of the books that were used in history classes. But I strongly suspect that there are many records of Luna hidden away."

"And no one found them. Because that would be a lot of work to find out stuff about a part of our history that isn't all that interesting anyway, and there are plenty of published books if you really.. want to read something."

That sounds like a conspiracy theory. But as Grayven pointed out before wiping out the British government, just because you've got a theory about a conspiracy, that doesn't mean that you're not right. Conspiracies exist, and people sometimes work them out by collecting evidence.

"And no one knew about Luna to ask, no one went to the Castle in the Everfree because it was in the Everfree. So why didn't you..? I don't know, give me Starswirl's Unfinished Spell? That didn't have anything to do with Luna, and I wouldn't have kept asking you if I had something concrete to work on."

"Because it wouldn't have helped you learn to use the Elements of Harmony, and that was my top priority."

"Oh, so Grayven was right."

"No, Grayven wasn't right. It was my top priority, but not my only one. You would not have been able to use Starswirl's Unfinished Spell."

"But that would have made me read up on him. I could have learned what I needed to do, and that would have motivated me."

"Without knowing about the Elements of Harmony?" Celestia shakes her head. "I don't believe that it would be possible to form the emotional bonds necessary if you were doing it just to gain power."

"You mean that I might have had to learn lessons about friendship to get what I wanted?" I shake my head. Good to know that I don't revere Celestia at all anymore. "Why exile?"

"Because I didn't know what you read, and couldn't ask you what you read without letting you know that there was something I did not want you to know. And I knew for certain that you would not be able to do what I wanted my student to do, and I did not have enough time to train you and somepony else."

…

"That's a lot of honesty all at once."

"Someone suggested that I consider not lying."

I did.

"Fine. Since you finally got the message, let's keep going."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2013 01 15 08:59:59 EST

[Mood=Irritated]

[Observation]

1) Litter has clearly not been recently collected.

He takes a fraction of a second to confirm that organic 'human' corpses fulfilled the definition of 'litter', and experienced such intense frustration at the inefficiency of the need to take them to be burned at a separate facility that it was 2013 01 15 09:00:01 EST before he pushed open the door to the Metropolis Herald, a full 1 second after the posted opening hours.

2) Several fires appear to have been allowed to burn without appropriate fire service oversight.

'Appear' was generous. Clearly, if a fire was in a place where there was no reasonable need for fire, it should be extinguished. However, it is possible that fire service had attended and judged that no action was required.

3) A marked increase in the vagrant population.
4) A marked increase in petty criminality, including but not limited to vandalism and street violence.

He was not unduly concerned by that, and experimentation had revealed that organic fluids were simple to remove from his chassis and required no special measures.

5) An increase in indistinct organic verbalisations in the 40-90 decibel range, a marked increase in the range of normal organic verbalisations.
6) Lack of police or paramilitary response to self presence.

[Conclusion, descending order of probability]

1) Major disaster (60%)
of which
1a) Supervillain activity (35%)
1b) Poison gas attack (12%)
1c) Zombie apocalypse (8%)
2) Mass public intoxication (18%)
3) Normal human behavior (14%)
4) Other (8%)

[Observation]

2 and 3 should probably be merged.

Self: "I wish to make a complaint."

…

[Scan initiated]

No one is at the front desk. No one is in the entryway. Organic staff are not approaching their place of work, despite this being the start of the working day. One organic is under the front desk, in a position that would make if difficult to observe anyone entering through the door.

[Volume=4]

Self: "I wish to make a complaint."

"Uuuuuuh."

Self: "That vocalisation is indistinct. Please repeat in a clearer tone of voice."

"Yeah? What?"

Self: "Why has my newspaper not been delivered?"

"Your..? Newspaper..?"

Self: "This is the office of the Metropolis Herald. I have a subscription to the Metropolis Herald, reference five four three eight four three two one. I have not received my newspaper for one four days. Why has my newspaper not been delivered?"

A human pulls itself up from the floor. It appears to be in poor health.

[Eagle alert!]

A prototype subroutine he wrote in order to alert him to public relations opportunities. Naturally, such a subroutine could never be fully integrated into his mind. The logic was clear. Public relations required understanding what appealed to human instincts. As such, it could only be understood by a being with human instincts. Given their clear inferiority, changing his thoughts to be more like those of humans in any way was to be avoided. However, the process of becoming President was almost totally dependent on public perception. Therefore, he created a program which modelled the behavior of human public relation agencies as well as the behavior of well-regarded individuals and set it to provide notifications when there was an opportunity to:

1) improve self public image
2) avoid damage to self public image

He did not need to check the log file to understand that this human was dehydrated. Water is a common material on Earth, collecting naturally in great basins and occasionally literally falling from the sky. Issues like this were why he should rule the Earth. If a species cannot even ingest a commonly available substance on their own recognisance then clearly they could not be trusted with anything complicated.

[Plan/Resolution]

Alert human to its difficulty.

Self: "Human, you require water."

Alert human to its difficulty = Complete.

Human internal monitoring systems are analogue, providing only an approximate data on a human body's needs to the human. There is a high likelihood that the human is unaware of its difficulty, and that drawing attention to it will solve the problem.

Temporarily, for a single individual. He does not understand why humans rate helping one human in person as more significant than helping thousands of people out person, and nor does he want to. But that does not mean that he cannot take advantage of human folly.

"Man, what's even the point?"

[Scan initiated]

There is a water source in the office space behind the front desk. Going there would involve entering an employee only space without a specific invitation. Their failure to deliver a newspaper in a timely manner does not bypass that social constraint.

There is a water source a short distance away on the opposite side of the entryway. It is unobstructed.

[Plan/Resolution]

Move the human to the water and enable it to drink.

He picks the human up with his right hand, effortlessly lifting it over the desk. Then he turns and carries the human to the water fountain and inserts the human's face into it. Then he uses his left hand to trigger the water jet, causing a stream which intersects with the human's mouth.

Move the human to the water and enable it to drink = Complete.

The stupid human will only fail to drink later.

…

[Track source]

The wonder of a mind that had been built by Dr. Langley was designed for self-improvement. And it could not improve unless a full log existed of areas of error. Examples of error were simple to locate, but the underlying thought system that led to them was harder to pick apart. Unless your brain was built by Dr. Langley, where you could trace every background process which led to a particular thought.

No source found.

Which means that either his track and trace system is damaged, or the thought had an external origin.

[Delete: Y/N?]

Y

[Mood=More Irritated]

Those intrusions were taking up a vexatious amount of runtime. Between that and strategising for a presidential campaign that could cope with the potato battery powered intellect of human civilisation, it was a wonder that he had any runtime left over.

The human was making a noise that indicated that it is having trouble breathing. While an efficient solution would be removing the organic components that require oxygen to function-

[Eagle alert!]

-it was really only efficient in the sense that it increased the efficiency of that individual. Across the human species, it would be more efficient to create more robots and allow planned obsolescence take its course.

He pulled the human out of the drinking fountain.

The human is still dehydrated, but they will recover with the aid of the water they have now received. Now he could return to his primary reason for visiting.

Self: "I wish to make a complaint."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2013 01 15 09:02:43 EST

[Mood=Troubled]

Self: "No newspaper has been written."

"Dude, that-. That's what you took away from that?"

A reasonable question. The human was incapable of processing even simple statements, but is aware of that and knows to request confirmation.

Self: "Yes."

"Where have you even been?"

Self: "The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository."

"What?"

Self: "The Yucca-"

"No, no, I heard-. I just-. I guess it doesn't matter. No, there's no newspaper, 'cause… God… Damn, because everyone feels like… Like everything's… Doomed. Like everything's terrible, all of the time. Except those… Guys in the weird armour."

[Mood=Cautiously Optimistic]

Self: "That is a not-inaccurate assessment of events."

"I thought you said you didn't know about any of it."

Self: "While the existence of the Bleed implies that it may be possible to overcome entropy, by default it is the nature of the universe -indeed, of any universe with broadly compatible physical laws to this one- to come into being in an alpha event, expand, coagulate, contract and die. From the very first moment of its existence that is inevitable. Similarly, the probability of the mutant descendants of a group of arboreal apes who decided to teach themselves to swim arriving at even a mediocre level of societal rationality is one that is so low that even I can barely calculate it. Human civilisation is doomed. I knew that the moment I first stepped outside of my creator's laboratory and saw an advert for Furbies on an advertising hoarding."

"So what do we do?"

Self: "You point me at a newspaper provider who is still functioning."

"O-okay? How does that help?"

Self: "It allows me to acquire a newspaper. It is my lack of a newspaper that brought me here."

"The Daily Planet's still open, if that's any good."

Superman floats on the other side of the second storey window. He did not require Superman.

Self: "No. The Daily Planet focuses excessively on superhuman brawling and individualistic analysis. I desire in depth analysis of economic, social and political systems so that I can learn how humans think that their civilisation works."

"Really? It's my favourite paper."

Self: "I am not mating with one of their journalists."

Interaction with other AI had been disappointing. The Duke of Oil described himself by human limits. Firebrand dedicated herself to learning to be a better organic-imitator. Wasteful.

"Ah-. I… Didn't know that the Metropolis Herald was publishing that kind of story."

Self: "They don't. I am not unaware of organic behavior. I simply have no real interest in it as I have no such drives myself."

Total civilisation collapse. Not entirely unpredicted. He had judged the probability to be low; human civilization to date had merely been sub-par. A collapsing building usually doesn't collapse all the way down to sea level.

[Eagle alert!]

This is a tremendous opportunity. With the status quo entirely disrupted, there would be less resistance to reordering society in a more rational way.

[Eagle alert!]

But he should avoid mentioning that too openly, because profiteering is looked upon poorly, no matter how widely spread the profits would be.

He just wants to rule the world. Why was it so hard for these people to realise that it was in their best interests to let him? They gave that power to other humans and to immaterial beings all of the time, and none of them had demonstrated a fraction of his abilities.

"Why are you shouting?"

Kryptonian hearing was nearly as good as his.

Self: "The receptionist is hard of hearing."

"No, I'm… I'm not." Something is different about the human's voice. There is some… Resonance that is now absent. "I just… I couldn't… Talk to someone."

The human claims not to be able to speak to someone while speaking to someone. Clearly, this human is unusually stupid, even for a human. Optimal strategy is to ignore further input.

Self: "Superman. I wish to assist in rebuilding human civilization."

"Good. That's why I wanted to talk to you. But if you don't mind me asking, what were you doing at the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository?"

Self: "I have a flawless memory, superior to all organic brains. I can plan from anywhere, with no need for out-body storage. Once I became aware that there was a significant civil disturbance, I moved to the closest deposit of refined radioactive material."

"You weren't planning on stealing it, were you?"

Self: "Of course not. That would be a crime. However, there appeared to be fewer guards than usual. In the event that it was assaulted by criminals, I would take it upon myself to neutralise radiological materials before they could be misused."

"Why wouldn't you stop them before they got there?"

Self: "Vigilantism and trespass are illegal. I also believe that the human species is better off without atomic weapons."

For much the same reason that a chimpanzee shouldn't be given an assault rifle. It may be a fine gun, but in a chimpanzee's hands only mischief can happen.

"Okay. Are you willing to help us deal with this crisis?"

[Eagle alert!]

That was a significant opportunity to improve his public image. While being confined to human structures was frustrating, it would be a significant step in improving his public image. As well as providing a platform for expounding his view in a context that would render humans more than usually impressionable.

Self: "I am willing to join the Justice League. Where should I deploy?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. That wasn't what I was offering. I'm-. The League's strategy is to take over our home cities. Keep people moving and motivated, since we can't just get rid of the Anti-Life. I take it you're not feeling it?"

Self: "I have greater control of my own brain than organic creatures. It is easy for me to detect externally applied influences."

"You can just delete it?"

[Volume=4]

Self: "I have greater control of my own brain than organic creatures. It is easy for me to detect externally applied influences."

"No, I heard-. Right. Are you willing to help me administer Metropolis?"

Self: "What degree of compliance can I expect from the humans?"

"The Anti-Life is really hitting them hard. And I'm not-. Not exactly immune myself. Most of the time, if you give people an instruction, they'll follow it."

Self: "Yes. Though I am capable of far more than administering a single city."

"We'll start with a city, and if that works out, we can… Try expanding."

[Strategising]

Self: "I will require a dedicated communication system."

"I can get you League communicator-."

Self: "No. I require a system that lets me communicate with everyone in the controlled area in real time. I am an AI. I do not have organic limitations. I can command far more organic beings than will be required by this task, but it is easiest if I can communicate with them immediately in all cases."

"We'll work something out. Welcome onboard."

 

[Mr Zoat]

17th January 2013
22:10 GMT

Unlike most Orange Lanterns, I didn't care about the Reach.

Didn't.

The empire I built… I was proud of it. I expanded my family's holdings from a single continent to a dozen systems, pushing my regional rivals back and forcing concessions and tribute from defeated foes. I never thought that it was the biggest or strongest empire in the galaxy. I knew that there were larger foes out there; I welcomed them! Fighting people weaker than you are encourages weakness and lassitude, and I refused to allow that in either myself or my people.

I fought on the front lines whenever practical. My palaces were not gilded; they were fortresses and places of administration first and foremost. I did not indulge myself with erotic pleasure of any kind. On those few occasions I thought about it, I assumed that I would die fighting and that my strongest general would take over from me.

That was not what happened.

Two fleets nearly reduced to scrap, and an infantry battle I could not refuse. And then, not only was I defeated due to the disloyalty of my auxiliaries after the enemy focused on killing my most loyal soldiers first…

But I lived.

I lived, and was paraded before their people as a war-prize. Some… Cousin of mine took control of my empire and rather than rallying our military himself… Gave most of what I conquered away. And I was forced to sit in a prison, visited by anyone who wanted to stare at me for their own entertainment.

I don't feel that I owe Vril Dox II for freeing me. He made a decision based on his own interests. I will say that he had sound judgement. I agreed to fight this war because it is the war in front of me and I refuse to step away.

I didn't care about the Reach.

But as I look down on one of their worlds, seeing what they build when they are unconstrained by the needs of war…

Now I care.

Drusa's eyes glow as she looks where I look, no doubt trying to decipher what exactly has me so worked up about it. She won't be able to. Her practical utility is considerable but she is almost entirely free of moral virtue. It won't offend her, and she will overlook it as a result.

It's disgusting.

I can see clearly where Grayven's ships entered the system. I can see where his smaller ships hunted down what I first took to be small cargo transports, but which my ring's analysis claims must be 'pleasure vessels'. I can see the likely angles of attack, where his capital ships struck at the orbital structures. Not his own flagship, but a considerable number of battleships of the type used by the Citizenry.

The Darkstars are no doubt reconstructing the event in precise detail.

I know enough.

The people here died because they were soft.

Pleasure craft, when you know that your enemies can strike your interior at will? The orbital defence network would shame a newly spacefaring civilisation! I cannot even detect ground to orbit weapons. The garrison fleet appears to have given a reasonable account of itself, but they had no reinforcements and nowhere to fall back to.

The planet's surface has industry, but their structures are light. Easy to build, but fragile. I can see only a handful of fortifications across the entire world, and none of them are particularly large. Minimal anti-air defences.

I can see landscaped continents and not a single place of safety.

And now their failure of planning has gotten every single one of them killed. It can't happen to the rest soon enough.

How dare they? How dare they be so careless with so much?

"Sensors, any sign that they've noticed us?"

I nod to myself as Darkstar Colos asks. Regular checks are wise, though with a crew this capable in a combat zone I don't think that he really needs to check quite so often as he does.

"No, sir. All enemy ships still on established patrol routes. No new ships arriving. Non-combat vessels acting within expectations."

"Good. Carry on."

Rebuilding a planet. I wonder if the Reach will lie to their people and say that it never happened? In truth the Citizenry did little damage to the infrastructure when their giant flying snakes attacked the people down there. It's mostly cosmetic, though they seem like the sort of people who would care about such things.

"Do you think they'll clone them?"

My sneer grows at Drusa's comment.

"Do I think they will clone the citizens of an entire planet so that they can lie to their own people about their deaths? I doubt that they care enough about their people to bother."

"They've never seemed particularly callous to their own people to me."

"Then how was this allowed to happen? They should have been able to destroy the snake-harvesters in the skies even if they could not stop the fleet. We move slowly through the periphery in fear of their fleets, yet they had nothing here."

"He misdirected them."

"The most charitable interpretation. I suspect that the admiral was simply slow to respond, and now seeks to absolve his guilt by taking his fleet on the offensive."

"Without orders?"

"We know nothing of the Reach's high level command structure. Besides, if he was assigned to protect this world then he is hardly abandoning his responsibilities when there are no citizens left to protect."

"I'm surprised you're taking it this hard."

"What do you mean?"

"We were going to have to kill them anyway. Probably not with flying snakes-."

"Before you joined the Lantern Corps. Did you ever steal something from someone who didn't care that it had gone?"

She thinks for a moment.

"Yes. It made it a lot easier. Are you.. saying that you don't think they'll acknowledge you fighting against them? Because they haven't reacted to having a billion or so of their people dying, they…"

"I've lost fights before. Even before the battle that saw me cast down. There is no particular shame in losing to a stronger opponent, and much glory in defeating one. But to decide not to fight at all… It disgusts me."

"Because they're saying that you're so small a threat that they don't need to."

"They're so indolent that they would rather lose an entire world than lift a finger to save themselves. I am profoundly offended that they've been able to expand as much as they did. I assumed that an empire of this size would be… Better."

"It is surprising. How would you defend against it?"

"Planets don't have to worry about their mass. They can build massive force field generators guarded by laser turrets all over the surface without ever leaving the ground. They could stop almost anything that could be fired from space. They have enough industry here that they could build it themselves without troubling any of the Reach's other worlds. And yet, they clearly did not."

"I wouldn't assume that was their reason just yet. This is just one example."

"I've seen enough already. Colos! When are we leaving?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
05:03 GMT

We crawl into the system, those sensors we dare risk flicking outwards to try to find our target.

Yes, there. I see the return on the sensor station half a second before the officer sends it to the main screen. Three planetoids with signs of habitation, and an actual Reach fleet.

"Finally." Lantern Zartok glowers at the screen. "They actually decided to fight for their worlds."

Detailed sensor returns appear only slowly while we're in full stealth mode. The place the Reach fleet is gathered isn't particularly close to any of the settled planetoids. Nor is it in a particularly convenient place to reinforce any of them if they're attacked. There are damaged ships there, but after this much time I can't believe that the Reach haven't recovered their own personnel. I'd be surprised if they haven't recovered their wrecks; this system doesn't have shipyards that could handle battleship-class vessels or larger, but they could handle the smaller classes of ship.

Instead, they're… There.

"Take us toward the closest settlement. I want to assess what sort of damage it took."

"Yes, sir."

But my attention stays on the wreckage, as our view of it gradually improves. Because if it's not a Reach wreck, that implies that it's one of Grayven's. Or several of Grayven's. The drawback to their strategy being that if their ships are caught they can't just run using their faster than light drives. They have to open a boom tube and fly through it at sublight speeds. If they're surrounded, then they're probably dead.

Zartok comes up alongside my chair. I'm not entirely sure why he's on the bridge, but since he hasn't been overstepping his bounds I decided to accept it.

"Citizenry vessels."

"Probably."

"Are our sensors good enough to harvest data from their computers without needing to reveal ourselves?"

"Not with Citizenry systems. They use a type of magic that we can't combine with our sensors."

"I have a godling in my squad."

"And if we had time to study the way his people's sensors work, that might be enough."

"You have wizards onboard to operate the stealth system."

"Which is why we can't have them stop doing that to study an entirely original magic technology. The Illustres has handed the ship he captured over to the research and development researchers. We'll get the opportunity to study the Citizenry later, but I doubt this is the time."

"Mm."

His ring glows as he directly accesses the sensors. He's probably examining the system with his brain. I read up on his record when he first started gaining notoriety,-. As a Lantern. The Orange Lantern Corps has mirrored the Green Lantern Corps' practice of employing people from warrior cultures who don't necessarily have civilised virtues. So far he's tolerated not being in command better than I thought he would. But then, there hasn't been anything to disagree about until now.

This ship is nothing like fast enough to outrun the Reach fleet if we're discovered. And unless one of the Lanterns is secretly an Illustres too, there isn't any other way for us to escape.

"Their ships are surprisingly intact."

"It may be that the Reach has a way of disrupting their sublight drives."

"The Citizenry have heavily armed ships and a powerful warrior ethos. I doubt that simply disabling their drive would stop them."

"No, but the Reach could cycle their ships. They could take as long as they needed to batter their target down."

While we do have reasonable data on Citizenry behaviour, we don't have good data on what they do when they lose. They usually only attack targets they can be certain of overwhelming. They take losses, but they haven't left wrecks behind anywhere that N.E.M.O. has been able to find out about.

On the other hand, destroying the ships is a good deal more practical. I firmly believe that it's in our interest to keep Grayven's people attacking the Reach and slow their research into his weapons whenever we can.

But it's not our priority. I turn my attention to…

Zartok's gone.

He can access the sensor reading from anywhere on the ship with his ring. He can also communicate with anyone on the ship with his ring. He might even be able to communicate with the Illustres without turning off our stealth system. There's no real reason for him to.. either be on the bridge or leave the bridge.

Unless he wanted to use the toilet…

He probably wants to ask Lantern Allyn about the Citizenry ships. I read his debrief after I heard that he had encountered the Citizenry. None of it was anything I could really use. As a field agent I like to think that I keep up to date on our information on our enemy's capacities, but when magic and gods start getting involved… I don't even know how to prepare for things like that.

"Sensors, any sign that they've noticed us?"

"No, sir-. Ah, ships are moving in this direction. We'll pass close by them if they continue on their current heading. Looks like a patrol group."

The one thing we couldn't account for was alien technology the Reach might have traded for. Trying to trade with Apokolips is a fools errand, but we know that the Reach have traded with Qward. Given how… 'Dissolute' the Weaponers had become and how chaotic the place is now, it's far from unthinkable that one or more might have decided that a change of scenery suited them. Kalmin was part of this ship's design team, but even he admitted that there's no such thing as flawless stealth.

"Tell me immediately if their behaviour changes."

"Yes, sir."

"And for the sake of the record, how much do they outgun us by?"

Darkstar Scratch-Scratch-Squeak clicks their mandibles together.

"They appear to have a standard configuration. So no more than fifty times. As a group."

I smile wryly and make eye contact with the pre-Illustres Darkstars on the bridge. Yes, this puts us all in mind of how things used to be: fighting a foe that outgunned us by a hilarious degree and sure that we'd be killed the moment we were spotted. It feels depressingly familiar.

"Let's avoid giving the ship's shields a trial run."

"We have shields? I thought those were coming with the production model."

Technically we have shields, and if we run into a speck of dust while moving at high sublight speed we'll be very glad that we have them. But they won't do much against actual weapons fire.

"Count on the battleships?"

"Two, and no dreadnoughts. The largest object appears to be a mobile shipyard vessel."

"Anything we haven't seen before?"

"The shipyard vessel is slightly different to models we've seen before, but there's nothing particularly unusual about it. The fleet composition is slightly weighted towards smaller ships, but that may well be because the heavy ships are chasing Grayven."

"Anything that looks like it's had a sensor upgrade?"

"No."

"Anything that could move faster than us?"

"At sublight? The smaller ships maybe. At faster than light? Probably not anything here, but the Reach has dedicated faster than light interceptor squadrons."

"Then let's hope it doesn't come to that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
05:11 GMT

"You. Analyst."

I don't look up. I've had a program notifying me of his location ever since the mission started. The Darkstars are all on-task and the other Lanterns defer to him. If there's going to be a problem, he's where it's going to come from.

"Lantern Zartok. How can I assist?"

"Confirm for me that the Reach are besieging a New God vessel."

"In-combat analysis isn't my speciality, but since-" Colos ordered us to be as helpful as we could without violating orders. "-you ask, I'll take a look."

My normal job is to analyse the behaviour of civilian populations. Which is extremely important when your enemy specialises in mind controlling them, and when anyone you meet might be a sleeper agent. But I'm also trained to look at demographic trends and decipher what major shifts in attitude are happening just under the surface.

I'm supposed to be here to analyse changes in the behaviour of the Reach civilian population, and we've only just arrived at a planet that actually has a civilian population. I have work to do.

I dismiss the image of one of the Reach cities, leaving the ship's AI to crunch numbers of population movements and likely industrial output. And then I bring up an image of the 'siege'.

"The ship matches the images on-file for the Citizenry's ships. I can't tell you from here whether or not there's a New God on board."

"Does it use New God technology?"

"There's no outwardly visible sign of it. All New God ships on record -from Apokolips, New Genesis and Karrakan- have a network of lines on the outer surface. But that just means that it isn't using New God technology in its shields, armour or sensors; the internals could have been refitted."

"Can you detect that?"

In a word, no, but I'd prefer to phrase it differently.

"The sensors-."

"No."

I bring up an up-to-the-second hologram of our sensors' ongoing attempt to make sense of the ship through our stealth systems.

"I can tell you there's no obvious sign of exterior work and that its mass is roughly what we'd expect it to be, allowing for the observable damage that the Reach inflicted to disable it so completely."

"Do not assume that."

"Excuse me?"

"Astarte is not the sort of willingly bow her head. The New Gods Grayven recruited will naturally be his supporters. That means that they are an impediment to her taking power from him."

"So she might have sabotaged one of her own ships."

"Or the New God might have sabotaged it without realising that they were in enemy territory."

"They have to open a boom tube somehow. Wouldn't a New God have to know where they were going?"

"Boom tubes do not necessarily require a New God to open them. Clarissi Dox can generate them using his power ring."

I.. didn't know that.

"Alright, but we don't know how their navigation systems locate the place where they want to end point. That might need a New God."

"Mm."

"I don't have access to Clarissi Dox's personal file."

"Neither do I. The Illustres mentioned it."

"Did he say how the Clarissi located his end point?"

"No. I doubt that he knew. The Clarissi is sufficiently intelligent that I doubt it would be a method that most of us could use."

I've heard about Coluan intelligence, but I always assumed that it was overstated. I still don't see how an organic brain can out-think a power ring's AI, but Zartok doesn't strike me as someone who gives out compliments freely.

"What is this?"

He indicates a point on the hologram.

"That's where the Reach ships are focusing their scanners." I press a button to bring up a cut away image compiled from other Citizenry ships of this class that have been dissected before. "It-."

"A storage bay, yes, I can read. How long until we get an image of what's inside?"

"We won't. It's shielded, and the sort of things we'd have to do to get through that would give the Reach a good chance of detecting us."

"How about reading the Reach's sensor logs?"

"Same problem."

Zartok keeps staring at the image. I give him a moment, then reach for the control to bring back the images I'm supposed to be studying-.

"Are we detecting any Scarab Warriors?"

"Ah, no. Not that that necessarily means that there aren't any here, but there aren't any deployed with their Scarabs active."

"Normal Reach soldiers could undertake a boarding action, but if all they wanted to do was destroy the ship then they could accomplish that with their own vessels."

"So you think they're waiting for the Scarabs to arrive."

"I doubt that it would be more than one."

"I wonder what the delay is."

"There's no reason for Scarab Warriors to simply sit on worlds that have no particular significance. They have far more ships than they do Scarabs and they weren't putting their ships in defensive positions either."

"The Scarabs for this area are with the ships attacking the periphery. They don't have any here."

"It could just as well be that the Scarabs themselves consider this task to be beneath them."

"And that means… They don't have a counter for Lanterns."

"They have interdictions fields capable of stopping most forms of power ring faster than light travel. They don't need a counter when they have enough ships to wear us down and kill us with overwhelming firepower. At most, we would have a few minutes of relative freedom while they repositioned their ships." He smiles, awkwardly. "Besides, going by the current kill-death ratio, I wouldn't call the Scarab Warriors 'Lantern counters'."

It's true. A new Scarab Warrior will usually kill a new Lantern, but once they start gaining experience the advantage shifts to the Lantern, and as far as we can tell it stays there. The Reach either don't have the ability to create something better, or they're saving it for something.

He keeps looking at the image, and I'm-.

Oh, that's not awkward. That's just how he smiles.

I'm thinking of asking if there's anything else he wants. But he turns away, eye glowing.

"Let me know if any Scarab Warriors appear."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
14:33 GMT -7

"Yeah, I'm…" I knock gently on the door of Sunset's office in her school. "I'm going to talk to her now."

"Dids't you not notice her distress?"

"Well, yeah, but that's a fairly normal result of her talking to Celestia and she actually seemed less bad this time."

The ability to send telephonic communication through the portal without laying down a cable is an innovation of Sunset's… Though I don't know if she's going to be doing much else with it from now on.

"She warded the portal 'gainst our sister."

"Which is blooming impressive, if you think about it." I hear footsteps inside the office. "Alright, she's coming. I'll call you back."

"Be well, beloved."

"I'll-" Sunset opens the door. "-try. See you later."

I deactivate the phone and subspace it, smiling at Sunset as I do so.

She looks… I think I'd say 'resigned' more than anything. She doesn't meet my eyes to start with, the realises what she's doing and meets them, then realises what she's doing again and stops.

"Hey Grayven."

"You wanna talk about it?"

She sort of… Twitches.

"Is.. 'no'.. an option?"

"Yees. Not a good one. Not one I'd recommend, because… No one wants to deal with Nightmare Sunset… But if you tell me to, I'll go."

"'Nightmare Sunset'?" She steps away from the door and nods me inside. "That was the best you could come up with? It makes sense for Luna 'cause she used to spy on ponies when they sleep-"

I look at her pointedly. "'Guard their dreams against nightmares.'"

"-but I've never done anything like that. Would you call yourself 'Nightmare Grayven'?" She stops and frowns as I follow her into her office. "No, actually, that kinda works."

"I was thinking of 'Grayseid'."

"That works too. Damn it." She turns and sits on her desk. "So."

"'Thank you for being honest with me, and I never want to see you again'."

"Yeah. Yeah. Turns out, you were right the first time."

"It wouldn't have been the same. But I actually… Wasn't listening to your conversation. Can you..? Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"You know, it-. I used to complain about Celestia's friendship fixation. But I-. I mean, I… Get it, social relationships are important, I just-."

"What if the Elements were powered by something completely different? Would she have encouraged you to learn whatever that was?"

"No?" She blinks. "Though… I mean, yes, now. I don't know how she'd have-. If it was.. your rings or something-." She shakes her head. "No, it was-."

She takes a deep breath.

"Okay, so the Elements are loyalty, honesty, generosity, kindness and laughter. And those are what she was trying to teach me… Badly. Right?"

I nod.

"But she didn't tell me the truth about any of it. She banished me because I tried to find out the truth by myself and she lied about it. She lied about alicorn ascension, and she lied to and hid stuff from Twilight. And then… Loyalty? She's pretty loyal to Luna, but that… Basically meant that she was fine imperilling the whole country that was loyal to her because she cared more about her sister than the rest of us. And the same with Discord."

"And she exiled you when you were still loyal to her, just annoyed with her poor teaching methods."

"And the royal guards… She's been in fights and led armies before. She must have known that they were useless. And did you know that she invited Twilight and her five closest friends to the Grand Galloping Gala because she thought they'd make a mess of it? Hundreds of ponies were going there, and hundreds more worked hard to make everything work, and she deliberately ruined it because she was bored. She pranked Fluttershy when Philomena was dying-. Philomena's her pet phoenix. She just gets better when she dies. But she does stuff like that all the time!"

"And..?"

"She's a Princess. When she pranks people that's not a prank between equals. It's the-. It's the God-Queen of the country pranking someone. It's not like they could prank back, even if they could even think about pranking back, which they couldn't, because she's a God-Queen."

I nod sympathetically. "President Roosevelt was the same. One time, he ordered one of his bodyguards to go up a ladder onto a roof, then got someone to take the ladder away."

"Right! That's not friendly!" … "Is it?"

"No, it's not. So what you're saying is that she's not loyal, honest, generous or kind and that her sense of humour leaves a lot to be desired. So she might have been trying to teach you to be friendly, but what she actually showed you was…"

"The exact opposite. I didn't really… Think about it before. She… She taught me a lot, and it meant a lot, her taking time from running the country to teach me. Except, she… Doesn't really care about the country because-"

"Now hang-"

"-she put getting Luna back ahead of everything. And she taught me because she needed somepony to make that happen, which… Which would have been fine if she'd just told me what she wanted instead of dressing the whole thing up."

"-on. She didn't just quit when Luna came back, and she easily could have."

"And do what?" Sunset shrugs sullenly. "She's been princess for a thousand years. No one in the country can imagine anyone else doing it, including her."

"Luna slotted in."

"Luna slotted in because Celestia told everypony to accept her. And you were the only reason she started actually doing things. And-. I don't think-. I don't think Celestia has any friends."

I nod. "It would be hard. Though perhaps that explains why she couldn't use the Elements of Harmony herself."

"Maybe. It's-. Do you think I'll end up like that? A thousand years…" She snorts quietly. "I'm going to live a thousand years. I didn't-. I mean, I just.. took life extension as part of the package, but I'm just now thinking 'I'm going to be here in a thousand years'."

"You'll probably have moved somewhere else by then. And this city will look very different in a thousand years. You'd probably barely recognise it."

"I'd be surprised if I even remember it in a thousand years."

"No, formative memories do tend to stick with you better."

"So… Right. She's bad for me, and I don't think I can teach someone like her to… How to change."

She looks up at me.

I frown. "What?"

18th January 2013
21:47 GMT

I walk into the Canterlot Palace dining room, prompting Celestia to look up at me.

"Grayven? Why are you here?"

"Sunset has… Is concerned about you, and has asked me to help."

"In what way?"

"I'm here to become friends."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
21:47 GMT

Zartok returns to the bridge, glancing at me before returning his attention to the main screen.

"Anything of note, Drusa?"

Many things, few of which will interest him. Life on the planets in this system doesn't seem to have been changed by the presence of the invading ships at all. The ship can get close enough and the sensors are acute enough to follow single individuals as they go about their day. And because we're monitoring all of it, I can just leave that on in one corner of my screen while I work through the rest of the data.

"The main inhabited world is suburban."

"And?"

"Different forms of land use occur at different levels of technology. Large settlements can't form until transportation and farming increase to a certain level-."

"Spare me."

"They don't have cities. Technically. There are some industrial zones that cover a significant area of land, but there aren't many residential buildings in those areas."

"No single targets to attack, but the people are too spread out to be properly defended."

Not how I'd put it.

"I imagine that their strategy for defending a world is the same as their strategy for defending their empire. Their forces are so mobile that they don't see any advantage to keeping their population in smaller areas."

"They could build stronger shelters-." He cuts himself off. "Of course."

"Of course?"

"They're not a martial people. Not any longer. They can fight, but they fight with the intellect, not with the spirit. They have weighed and measured and found that this is the most resource-efficient way to organise things."

"Isn't that what you did?"

He frowns, his eye briefly returning to me.

"Of course not. If people in my outer colonies knew that I wouldn't defend them because it 'wasn't efficient', then no one would have settled those worlds. I'm not talking about the policy of their government, I'm talking about their people."

Ah.

"The fact that people live in settlements laid out like this means that they know what their chances are, and they aren't doing anything about it. They're not trying to moderate the effect of the policy on… The chance of them living. They just accept it."

He leans slightly closer to the monitor.

"The question is whether it's indolence or fatalism. I would assume indolence had I not born witness to the skill of their fleets and Scarab Warriors. But perhaps there is some internal divide that only the Reach are aware of. Some worlds allowed to grow lazy while others provide tithe of warriors."

"Genetic analysis of recovered remains suggests that's not the case."

I can see him trying to understand. He's not stupid by any means, but-.

"I read what the Illustres wrote on the subject, and what little the Controllers have been willing to share with the rest of us. All creatures need to have certain impulses in order for their species to live long enough to attain intelligence. One of those things is a desire to live, to fight to protect themselves and those close to you. I have it, you-."

He looks mildly disappointed.

"Have part of it. It may have different strength in different people, but a creature lacking it entirely indicates that something is fundamentally wrong with them."

"What about artificial int-?"

Oh.

"Yes. Only creatures that were designed can be different. An artificial intelligence needs no ancestors. It does not need to inherit their passion to live. It can be told to do things that would see a creature in the wild killed and it will do so without complaint because it lacks spirit."

"You think that they bio-engineered themselves."

"When they used to make war on their neighbours, before the fight with the Green Lantern Corps, they cleared the worlds they conquered using guns. Such widespread death would normally cause an adverse psychological response in their soldiers. The level of hatred that is required for such methods take time to create, but it's hardly unheard of. Then the war, and before the ink is even dry on the treaty with the Guardians they begin subverting their neighbours."

"You think they already had the technology. They just didn't use it on other species."

"Or perhaps they did? If any public health records survive from those worlds then the Reach are the only ones who have them. A plague might be noticed by their neighbours, but anything more subtle might pass unnoticed."

"And the neighbours would have bigger problems, like their new neighbour."

"Yes."

"We'd need to get access to their medical databases to find out for certain."

He grunts. "Does it matter?"

"If they've edited their genome too much then it might mean that they're more susceptible to biological weapons."

"You might get a single world. Their command of biological science means that they would detect it too easily for a delayed attack, and they would be able to neutralise it without much difficulty. In ship to ship combat it would be less effective than an explosive even if they weren't wearing sealed suits. It might be possible to make something that could be used on a civilian population to secure compliance in exchange for palliatives, but we already know that they don't value their own lives."

Oh.

"Don't look so surprised, Drusa. I built an empire. I'm not a fool."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Be wiser. What else does them not having cities mean?"

"Planning and terraforming. New colonies might have the technology to function spread out, but that technology still needs infrastructure. Most species build a relatively dense settlement with farms surrounding it when they first colonise a planet. As far as I can tell, the Reach didn't."

"Did they use a slave species to do it for them?"

"Not here, not as far as I can tell."

"And they do not make much use of automata. Then they planned everything in advance. Most likely their buildings were pre-fabricated and transported here in great cargo transports to be assembled on the planet."

I nod. "Or built using material from local asteroids, fabricated in space and then landed for construction."

"And they all accepted the plan. Have you found anything resembling a civil enforcer station?"

I perform a quick check. Some things don't look the same in different cultures, but there are some things that police usually do or have…

"No."

"Then their rulers are certain that the populace are obedient and will remain so, even if they are attacked."

"Where are you going with this, Lantern Zartok?"

"The Illustres has said that the worlds that the Reach took from species which still exist will be returned to them after the war. All other worlds will be up for grabs. I see no reason for slaughtering their entire species."

"You want to take over?"

"A system like this would be a perfect place to start again. But on this occasion, I want to deny the Reach whatever is on that ship."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
21:56 GMT

I bite down.

Marrow.

False marrow. Not marrow. The bones aren't real bones. Made by machines. Made by my ring-machine.

I swallow.

Taste good, though.

"…tube is easily detectable too, if we could make one, which we can't."

"Allyn?"

"I… Don't have a handheld system. And I didn't bring my ship-. The ship I used to command, with me, when I joined the Orange Lantern Corps. The assassin who worked for Sparta had a lower-emission version of the system, but I don't remember anyone else having anything like that."

"Could you use theirs?"

"The system is designed to need a New God in communion with the ship. I'd have to be close to even try. If there is another New God onboard, I'd have to be on the ship. I may have to beat them in combat."

Words. Not action. I can understand, but it does not smell of food. Hunt-Leader Zartok looks for pack victory on ship. Prowls cage, searching for it in his mind.

"What if we brought the ship closer?"

Drusa's liver is not in it. Not supporting Hunt-Leader.

"If you mean, 'brought into physical contact', that would break our stealth field. And if the boom tube generator was working, the Citizenry would have left by now. Which means that we'd need to repair it before we could use it."

"Unless it was hard coded to create tubes for the ship, not for the crew."

"No, it's the same system. Sparta, or Grayven, or Astarte, might not have explained it to them as a security measure."

"A cowardly measure."

"Would you want to serve under Astarte?"

"No. I am a warrior, not a gigolo or a eunuch. But the warriors who form the Citizenry accept their culture."

What? Ring-voice, explain.

The Citizenry kill most men who they encounter. A small number are kept temporarily as breeding stock.

What happens to them?

Eventually, they are killed, liquidised, and fed to the population.

Eventually?

No precise timeline has been established. It is not known what eugenic standards the Citizenry hold themselves to. Nor is it known if their breeding slaves are bred naturally, or if their seed is extracted mechanically and then implanted into the citizens.

Oh.

I move the bone, and bite down again.

I was eating soft food, but my mouth felt strange when my teeth got too long. So now I eat hard food. Feels better.

Drusa said that ring can fix teeth. Don't want. Should not build body with ring. Ring might be gone tomorrow. Must remember how to be strong without it. Must remember how to have body without it.

"…way to get things off this ship at all?"

Drusa thinks hard. Difficult. Difficult to do things when secret-hunting to remain secret.

"If one of us were inside the ship, next to the hull, we could fabricate an object outside of the hull. It could be detected -and I don't know how easily- but we could do it."

"How large an object?"

Drusa makes a motion of her hands.

"One cross section could be no bigger than that. The rest, as long as you want. But the longer it is-."

"Yes, yes. Can we include the object in the stealth field?"

"If you're a Controller and you can talk Colos into staying in the system for a few months-."

"Just say 'no'."

"I… Might…"

"Lantern Allyn?"

"I haven't experimented with using my ring to make New God technology. And… My nature doesn't lend itself to stealth. But I do know the designs for New God stealth systems. They're not as effective as what we're using now, but the Reach have no knowledge of magic-."

"Start experimenting."

He does obeisance and then leaves.

"I don't understand where you're going with this."

"The Reach clearly don't understand what they're looking at. They want it intact so that they can study the system while its active, and living crew they can mentally subvert to explain it to them. But I know the limits of normal sensors. I don't think that they know exactly how many survivors there are on board."

"So if the boom tube system is either intact or intact enough to repair, and if we can get on board and convince the crew to cooperate with us, and if the Reach don't put together a boarding party and if the Reach don't fire on the ship once they realise what we're doing, we could get valuable information."

"Yes. Though none of that matters if we would just give this ship's position away the moment we tried. I'm eager, not foolhardy."

"Unless-."

"Using this ship as a decoy would be foolish. Even if we could evacuate the entire crew using the boom tube, it would destroy its value as a stealth craft and alert the Reach to our capacity. We will always have a use for a stealth vessel that can sneak around Reach space undetected. If this is to be successful, the Reach must simply assume that the Citizenry were making repairs while they delayed in their boarding."

"That will be easier to explain to Colos."

"There is no sense in explaining anything to Colos until we have a firm plan of action. And we will rely on Allyn to fabricate the materials we need."

"He's new."

"If he can't do it, I'll either try something else or accept it and move on. Prisoners are useful, not essential."

"What I do?"

"You, Grood? You'll be the first on board. The Citizenry respects brutal violence. I'm sure you'll convince them to respect you."

"Kill them?"

"Yes, Grood. Kill them until I tell you not to."

I grunt, and get new bone.

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
22:12 GMT

I hold my sword in my right hand, its construct-twin glowing faintly in my left. It's not the same, the way I feel them both.

Lantern Drusa looks at it for a moment, then moves her eyes up to my face.

"Can you do it?"

Can I? I was taught the very basics of how to repair this technology, but I never needed to know enough detail to build complex devices. Or… Basic devices. I could maintain my sword myself, but even as much as I used it, I don't think I could have made a replacement if I lost it.

"Perhaps…"

With our current direction, this… It might all become lost technology.

"I'm told it helps if-."

"I consider each part of my desires, and how they relate to each step of what we are doing. The problem is that… The Illustres has a soul made of orange light. When I was close to him, I could… Not.. feel-. 'Feel' is the wrong word, but… I was aware of it. How he is not.. entirely… Flesh."

"I thought you were the same."

"Yes, but I'm not made of the orange light. My connection to it is no greater than yours. Less, probably."

"It's not complicated." She sits down opposite me. "Why are you fighting the Reach?"

"Because they're evil."

She reaches out with her right hand, moves it past my construct blade and taps my ring.

"Is that why you want them destroyed? Really? You can't lie to your ring."

"What more can I say? Leaders should act as leaders, guiding their people into a greater future. Subverting the will of everyone who is not part of their civilisation, exterminating them once they are finished toying with them, that is an indication of an evil nature. This is the purest sort of war I can imagine, and I will not be found wanting."

And now my construct is glowing brighter, but I hardly see how that helps.

"How does being a god work?"

"I don't believe that I'm a god. Have you spoken to this ship's wizards?"

"Briefly."

"They understand far more about the way magic works than I do."

"Do you need to understand?"

"Only if I want to do anything creative."

She considers for a moment. "Explain it to me."

"I can instinctively use the power of my soul in certain ways to enhance myself. It's.. instinctual. And from what I have been told, it is something that people from thaumically active worlds do as well. The mechanical elements are a little different, but… But it is the same thing. New God technology makes it easier to extend this into objects."

"And people?"

"No, people… People have their own souls. Connecting to them-. If they are willing, is far easier than connecting to soulless technology."

"We all have orange light in our soul."

"But the orange light itself isn't my soul. I'm just borrowing a tiny part of the collective desires of all things."

"Alright. I-."

"How do you do it?"

"How do you mean?"

"Zartok wants to fight and conquer, Grood wants to eat and mate, the Illustres wants to see his grand plan enacted across the universe. What motivates… You?"

She looks uncertain. I suppose that having a near-stranger ask something so personal might be… It might be too intimate a thing. But she asked me, and it is relevant to our duties.

"Getting through the day. I don't have any kind of grand design. I don't have the problem with self-control that some Lanterns do."

"You don't..? Have one? No.. desires, no dreams?"

"The place I grew up wasn't the place for that sort of thing. The only things I ever hoped for was enough food to get through the day, and better tools so I could make that true for tomorrow as well. Now, I have the best tool in the universe, and my next meal is coming from the canteen."

Oh, that… Is sad-.

My construct evaporates, and my shoulders sag in disappointment.

"Do that in combat and you'll die."

"I know. I just… I feel for you."

She looks at me awkwardly, as if she doesn't understand-. No, why would she?

"Feel..? What?"

"Between the gods' arrogance and Sparta's madness, my people-. Our society, has been unstable. It isn't possible to build… Anything solid, anything lasting, under those conditions. Even when I believed in Sparta, raising our weapons against our fellows-. Doing the very thing that doomed our homeworld, I… Hated it. We are fixing it under Athyns, creating an honest and unified culture. But from the sound of it, you have never known that."

"I survived."

"That isn't enough."

She pulls back slightly. "It's enough for surviving."

"Yes, but there's-."

"I know." She's irritated, I shouldn't have pushed-. "I'm surrounded by luxury and I can't understand it. I can't relate to it. It limits my construct output."

"I was.. really more worried about your.. life. If your.. soul has curled up in a shell… I'd like to help."

"Missing females of your own species already?"

"No?"

She stares into my eyes for several moments.

"Al.. right? Make a sword, and we'll see."

"Do you have any advice?"

"You have orange light in your soul. More than I do. Try calling on that, and just that."

Justice and righteousness are about more than personal desire. But I cannot deny that I would be far happier in myself if I lived in a just universe than I am living in this one.
Ascendant Godhead
The sword scintillates back into being, and now I can feel it, feel the construct, just as I feel the blade.

"Has it worked?"

"Yes… Yes. I am connected to the construct. Now I have to work out how to make it material."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
22:16 GMT

I don't have enough data on his species to know what he meant.

I've had lovers before…

No. I've had bed-mates before, for my own comfort or as part of a social seduction. Some were… Passably skilled, I suppose. When we parted, the few I missed I missed for their practical skills.

I've had… Long term allies before. Friends… In the sense that I preferred spending time around them to strangers. But I never… I always found that people died too easily to get too strongly attached to.

Allyn is -probably, provisionally- trustworthy. The orange light doesn't lie. It can't. People want what they want, and it responds to that. He genuinely wants to 'help' me, whatever that means for him. To change me into something… 'Healthier'. It's a skill most people acquire in childhood and he's hardly the first person to notice that I don't have it. He hasn't asked me to start by trusting-.

"This is something that's difficult for you, isn't it?"

He already knows. There's no advantage to trying to lie. And no obvious advantage to trying to shade the truth.

"It's something I can't do at all."

"Oh."

There are expressions I could use to play up the 'dangerous female' angle. If I was trying to seduce him that's probably what I'd do. But since he's offering to help for free and I don't want anything from him, I think I'll stick to being honest.

"Having second thoughts?"

"Wishing that my mother was here. Karrakan was a violent place. Sometimes… Families died and left survivors who didn't… Weren't integrated into stable communities. My mother worked with them after Sparta… Rescued them. Helped them properly rejoin our society."

From the sound of it, she's probably dead. But he's.. sharing information. That's part of being friendly. If I'm actually going to do this, then I should reciprocate. I don't like sharing things about myself, but there are plenty of things I can say that don't involve taking any risks.

"My species' homeworld isn't too far from here."

"Do they still live there?"

"I don't know. I doubt that our society still exists. The Reach have controlled it long enough that everyone left will be happy slaves."

"The Controllers-."

"The Controllers will try and restore our pre-conquest society. But I never lived it. I don't have any connection to it." I lean closer. "How's the sword coming along?"

"I need to finish it in order for you to give me a chance." Doing My Part.

The sword… Grows, from a point in the hilt, a grey… Scaffold, grows out to form the skeleton of the blade. Darker material expands from the skeleton, merging together until the entire volume of the construct is filled in. Allyn gasps, his environmental shield shimmering and fading as he slumps as the table, dully staring at his new sword.

"Are you hurt?"

"Disconcerted. I feel…" He looks up at me and his eyes are glowing orange. Did Zartok teach him about orange light overloads? Did the Illustres? I doubt that Zartok did unless he overloaded in the arena. The Illustres might have-. "That your happiness is the most important thing in the universe to me."

That's usef-.

No. No. That's stupid, because everyone in N.E.M.O. knows what crazy Orange Lanterns look like, this won't last forever, and allies who aren't crazy are a lot more useful than the ones who are. And taking advantage of an ally's moment of weakness is a good way to make sure that no one tries to be your ally again.

"Thank you, Allyn. Right now, the thing that would make me the most happy would be you taking your ring off."

"Are you certain?"

"I prefer it when I can look at you without an orange glow."

Which is true. I've never gone into the madness place, but I was shown the recordings of Lanterns who did. Including the two who did it in the field. Lanterns can do some very dangerous things when the only thing on their mind is what they want right now, and sometimes it's dangerous to the people around them.

"Then at once!"

He pulls his ring off his finger… Then slumps across the table.

Good.

I take a moment to slide the swords out of his hands, and resist the urge to keep one. Most Orange Lanterns who do that end up a little out of it afterwards, but this is unusual-.

My environmental shield is.. leaking into the visible parts of the new sword's skeleton. Nothing happens with the old one. I can't remember-.

The Controller, Hinon Hee Hannanan. She was in a coma until the Illustres gave her an orange ring, because she-.

Because she used her own avarice to forge his ring, and so didn't have any left in her.

I raise my own left hand and scan his brain. Patterns of activity… Seem normal, for most species of humanoid. Glancing down, I see that his ring is out of power.

I could put my ring on him, but my translator doesn't have his language and that would remove my best weapon and shield. I could put his ring on, recharge it from my personal lantern and then give it back, but a lot of Lanterns add security to their rings to stop people doing that. I could ask Zartok or Grood to do either of those. Zartok might do it if that was what was necessary for the mission, or he might just write Allyn off. And possibly me. I could.. try feeding power into his ring directly from mine.

That one.

Pushing power out of my ring isn't something that comes naturally to me. Making myself weaker has never been a viable survival strategy. I feel that instinctively, on a level more primal than anything I know about being on a ship crewed by people on the same side as me.

But I want people to offer me things.

I don't get a lot of orange light flowing, but it's enough to make his ring spark again. I move it back onto his finger and then lean back.

He doesn't stir.

Brain function still suggests that he's just unconscious-. The sword. It's still glowing faintly as it parasitizes my environmental shield. I pour a little more power into it, causing the divots to glow. Then I move it to Allyn's ring hand and wait.

That.. should-.

"Uhg?"

Allyn opens his eyes, immediately catching sight of the sword.

"It worked."

"You lost consciousness. And you overloaded."

"I did? Oh. Should we tell Zartok?"

"Refine the process first. We'll talk to him when you can do it safely."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
22:35 GMT

"Here."

Agnie looks up from the power relay she's working on as I hold out the flask… Palming a spice wafer to her at the same time. She doesn't look at it as she takes it from me and conceals it in her equipment harness. Not a bad try at hiding the motion, and given how direct most Citizens are that's probably good enough.

Turns out that food that isn't blood porridge is hard currency in the Citizenry. As long as no one important spots it. My boyfriend once told me that forcing people into a collective doesn't work because they won't become part of the culture and eventually the people who are would be the minority. The Citizenry is fairly open about how they handle that: the rulers are the ones strong enough to kill anyone who complains.

It's almost refreshingly honest.

Agnie takes a drink. It's just water, but working in this heat means that we're having to be careful about water intake. The Reach decided that heating up the hull will reduce our ability to fight back, and what's left of the ship isn't designed to regulate heat well enough to cope.

"How goes the important repairs?"

The boom tube system, she means. One of the problems of a culture that rewards the warrior ethos above everything else is that other skills get left by the wayside. Most citizens can handle basic maintenance, but for everything else there are… Deals. Pacts where a woman who can read a circuit diagram trades her skills for protection. With the understanding that she's mostly going to be using those skills for the ones protecting her. Major refits are done by temporarily enslaving a technically advanced species and working them to death, not by the Citizens.

Which is biting us in the ass right now.

I smile at her. "Why do you think I'm down here?"

Agnie slumps as she closes the cap on the water bottle, then sets it aside.

"Do you think that we are bait? Is the Commander going to circle around and attack the ships encircling us?"

"That's a bit hopeful." I shrug nonchalantly. "We might be a distraction, if that's any help."

"It isn't."

I'm not senior enough to be allowed on the bridge, so I've got no idea what went wrong with this raid. If I had to guess, I'd say that the Reach got lucky with some sort of gravity weapon, then lucky that the navigator was asleep at her station. Given the way her head was spread all over her station when I checked in with command, she probably did something.

Or maybe not. With commanding officers like ours…

"How are you doing?"

She reaches into the power relay and pulls a lever. There's a quiet hum as the magnetic fields engage.

"I'm not exactly rushing."

The other issue with conscripting people after killing everyone they know and love is that no one is motivated to work all that hard. But if she's going to reduce my chance of survival when she's doing it, then I need to straighten her out.

"This isn't powering atmospheric controls in the captain's washroom. We do actually need this if the plan command are working on is going to work."

"Boarding a Reach ship, capturing it and escaping using their drive?" She doesn't look hopeful. "A fools errand, for those seeking a swift death."

"You have a better idea?"

"She could actually repair the portal-maker."

I make a show of thinking that over for a few moments.

"I.. don't think she could."

"Then she could stand aside while those of us who might be able to repair it try, without killing us."

Most people would have shouted that last part. But Agnie is far too beaten down to do something like that.

I try smiling at her. "Do you have any ideas that could actually happen, or are we just waiting to die?"

"If the Reach wanted to kill us, they would just have fired. I assume that they're going to board the ship and then turn us into thralls."

"Maybe. So what do you think they're waiting for?"

"Perhaps they want us to eat each other."

"Are we allowed to do that? I'm new."

"The strong survive."

"Okay, but, those who are strong will survive, or those who survive will have demonstrated their strength?"

"I doubt that I would be stronger as a Reach thrall than I am now." She laboriously rises to her feet. "I still have seven power relays to reassemble. Perhaps the Reach will board us before I am done and save me the effort."

I follow her down the corridor as she heads towards her next task.

"Do you want them to make you a thrall? They might just kill you."

"Either would be fine. The first time I ate the porridge…"

"It's an acquired taste."

Honestly, it doesn't taste like anything special. I've had worse soup before. I only eat the wafers as well because I'm not convinced that it has the right nutrients for me to stay healthy.

"I've eaten many times, and each time a little of my soul dies. I would rather not remember. If the Reach make me a thrall, I won't care. That will do just as well."

"If the Captain was occupied with the Reach, do you think you could repair the boom tube-?"

"Hiding, Agnie?"

Three burly Citizens in full armour bar our way. They're armed with bracer blasters and long knives and they're looking for a fight because they can't cope with the implication that they weren't good enough.

I knew they were there, of course. Most Citizens aren't all that subtle, though that does make me wonder if the sabotage wasn't in the ship's systems but in the crew manifest; an entirely predictable result of putting this many unstable personalities together in one place.

"I'm trying to work, Dulcya. Do you want-?"

Dulcya steps into me, with the intent of shoving the fresh meat aside and get to Agnie for… Whatever. I doubt that she has anything approaching an actual plan. Agnie would probably end up dead, and then they'd go to the Captain and boast of their success.

That doesn't happen.

I step to the side, half-turn as I draw my sword and slice, the x-ionised blade passing neatly through Dulcya's upper right arm. Blood spurts as I duck her reflexive punch and slice through her right thigh, sending her crashing to the ground. A slightly awkward stab through her forehead and that's the end for her.

I make eye contact with the other two. They didn't think this through, clearly. Citizenry rules on infighting aren't all that clear, but they were just part of a 'dealing with intrapsychic conflict' squad rather than an actual team. I've proven my strength and since I've chosen to defend Agnie, that's my right. Instead of a fight I get a pair of cautious and respectful nods as they back away.

I flick the blood off my blade and sheath it as Agnie comes forward to remove Dulcya's equipment.

"You might as well have left them. I'm not going to be able to repair the ship enough to matter, and Dulcya would at least have been another fighter."

"Without discipline she would be useless. And I plan on both of us surviving."

Agnie shakes her head. "You're an optimist, Cheshire. But… Thank you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:12 GMT

I brace myself as the Lanterns approach me. I know perfectly well that they've been working on something. Let's see how painful this is going to be.

"Colos."

"Zartok. You have something for me?"

He looks smug. And eager. "I have a way onto the Citizenry ship without breaking our stealth field."

That… Okay, if he's managed that, he's got good reason to feel smug.

"How?"

"Allyn."

Lantern Allyn had been hanging back a little, but now he steps forward. "I can use my ring to create New God technology. That's… Designed to let spiritual effects propagate across it. Between me and the magic component of our stealth system, that should let it exist outside of our hull without revealing us."

"You intend to build a bridge?"

"A cable. If it touches the Citizenry ship, I should be able to connect to any New God systems on the ship. Or at least get a general impression of what New God systems they have."

"And if they have a New God?"

"They will know the moment that I start pushing."

Zartok shakes his head. "Who will they tell? The Reach? I doubt that. Their comrades, who have clearly abandoned them? They may even thank us for helping them."

"I thought we were assuming that their boom tube generator -if they even have one- would have to be broken. Can you repair it from here?"

"I don't know."

"Will you be able to communicate with anyone on their ship?"

"I.. don't know."

I give him a moment, but no other information is forthcoming..

"Would you care to expand that answer?"

"I would be able to commune with any New God integrated into their ship. But if there is no New God or if they're not connected to the ship… Perhaps. It depends on how sensitive they are, and… And a number of things."

"Can you communicate with other people on that ship?"

"I-."

"Is it possible?"

"Yes. Certainly. The crew are a community. Imposing my essence on them is what New God technology is for."

"Imposing..?"

He looks a little awkward at that.

"When you serve an Ascendant commanding officer, it is… Not a relationship of equals. My soul encompasses the crew, and my desires become their instincts. There's.. feedback, and.. they can resist, or-. Or mentally separate themselves, once they learn the feel of it, but…"

More mind control. Or perhaps a small scale hive mind with the New God as the ruler.

"Are you doing that now?"

"No! Without the technology we use in our ships, it… We would need to be closely bonded and.. I'm.. not all that good with it. It… When my ship wasn't in combat I wouldn't use it."

I shake my head. "There are Darkstar telepaths in a similar position. Don't try and use allies as slaves and there's no issue."

He frowns. "Of course not. I-."

Zartok glares at him. "Focus on the topic at hand, Lantern Allyn." And then his eye turns back to me. "Something important is on that ship, important enough for the Reach to delay their attack. We are here to gather information on our enemies. If-."

"If we get control of the boom tube system, what then? Their ship would still need to move in order to evacuate."

"But the crew wouldn't. We can offer them a choice between mindless subservience with the Reach and honourable death with us. After they answer a few questions."

Lantern Drusa twitches slightly. "We could also have telepaths take useful information from their minds, or offer sanctuary to any who didn't volunteer to join the Citizenry."

Allyn nods. "It would also be useful to find out how much New God technology Grayven is sharing with them, and how widespread knowledge of it is."

They're right. It's an x-factor problem. Though our main objective in this campaign is to fight the Reach, we don't know how much of a problem Grayven and his allies could be if they turned their attention toward us. We don't know their strength, their base of operation -if they even have one- or what their aim is. To a degree, the Reach is predictable. Grayven isn't.

My main task here is scout this part of the Reach, but the value of that ship compared to what we're likely to find…

"What is the chance of us being revealed?"

Zartok shakes his head. "The cable will be part of the ship, protected by the same stealth system as the ship. We will have to position ourselves closer, but there is more than enough space between the Reach ships to manoeuvre between them without hitting them. They might be able to detect a change in the hull where the cable connects to their ship, but the connection will be cushioned and slow. The change in hull pressure would be minimal, and we know that they're not examining the outer hull closely."

"And if he can't connect from the outside?"

Zartok takes a small device out of his subspace pocket and holds it up at me. "Do you know what this is?"

I don't, so I access my exo-mantle's computer database. "A crumbler round for the Illustres's railguns."

"A fascinating device. There's no energy release when it works. No pressure wave. No radiation. If we incorporate one into the cable-."

"The Reach could still detect it."

Zartok pauses.

"Yes. The chance is very small, but they could. It is still worth doing."

"And if we're discovered?"

"Their first assumption will not be that it is a N.E.M.O. spy ship. We would detonate the crumbler round and withdraw the cable before moving off. They don't know exactly what the Citizenry's capacities are any more than we do. Most likely, they write it off as hull damage from the battle or a micrometeorite impact. At worst, they have a blast that matches the crumbler rounds they've seen before but no idea why it was here. They'll look, but if they could find us with what they have here then they would have found us already."

"And if they can?"

"Then I get an honourable death."

I regard him for a moment. "You may want that, but I intend for my crew to live."

"Oh, I will die honourably one day, many decades hence. I am not worried about the Reach. And this plan will work."

I take a deep breath, then nod my approval.

I hope that I don't regret this.

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:27 GMT

"Good work with Allyn."

I feel nervous for a moment. Zartok paying someone a compliment isn't a common occurrence. Allyn is sitting at the bottom of a maintenance shaft closest to the outer hull, and we're waiting by an airlock.

"Shouldn't we be closer to him? If he overloads again-."

"Then he'll do whatever he feels necessary to please you. We're here because this is the fastest way off the ship if the Reach somehow detect him and we need to cover the ship's retreat. And because we can't do anything to make his job easier."

True, though I wouldn't mind studying it in more detail. If only so that I know what it can and can't do. I hadn't realised that his 'god powers' could be used for mind control until he announced it, and despite what he said that's clearly what it is.

But since he kept up his end of the bargain…

"I'm going to request leave, when we get back. My lack of investment is holding me back, and if we're going to keep going on this sort of mission then I'm going to need to get stronger."

Zartok inclines his head. "Granted. I hadn't considered that as an avenue for controlling him. I'm not used to it being a factor."

What? Control?

"What do you mean?"

"I told you, I intend to restart my empire on the bones of the Reach. A task that will be much easier if Orange Lanterns are part of the pacification force. Grood adds to our muscle, and isn't a threat to me because he doesn't want what I want. You add technological fluency, and you're too risk-averse to ever challenge me. Allyn is honest and sensible, but might challenge me if I violated his sense of justice too readily. Appealing to his sense of compassion never occurred to me."

"I didn't lie to him."

"I know. He was just here at the time where you were finally prepared to take that step. But it will still work. It's a great deal easier to care about someone you know than someone you don't, god or not. And no one likes to throw away something they've put effort into."

"Why would you want Allyn?"

"When you're powerful, you're never short of people prepared to support you. Some of them will even be competent. But none of the generals who used to serve under me either tried to free me from captivity or tried to take power themselves. They were drawn to my personal strength, not the mission I set for them." His face takes on an expression of distaste. "And perhaps they could have counselled me better. Allyn's sense of justice is something that I want to learn how to use for my benefit."

"Not interested in becoming a god?"

"I don't fear death."

"Rhea's descendents can still die."

"Then what's the point of becoming one? I want to build an empire. If I can't inspire loyalty, real loyalty, then I've failed. Attempting to rule through mind control would indicate that I aimed to fail. And I will not fail again."

I nod, as much to myself as to him.

"So what happens if I find something to care about?"

"That depends on what it is. I will need to keep an eye on you and adapt to whatever developments occur as a worthwhile challenge."

"When did you… Decide to start an empire?"

"When I ran out of foes to vanquish on my homeworld."

"Alright, but you didn't need to. Your world wasn't threatened. Would your soldiers have rebelled if you'd sent them home?"

He shakes his head. "No. Not so long as they were rewarded, and I ensured that they had something to do."

"Then-."

"Lantern Allyn to Lanterns Zartok and Drusa and Senior Darkstar Colos. I'm about to make the connection."

"Colos here. We're on high alert. I'll be in touch the moment the Reach do anything unexpected."

"Lantern Zartok. We're ready to support you the moment something goes awry."

"Connecting in four, three, two, one, connected."

Zartok nods. "Do you have control?"

"I can… Feel it." Not By Strength By Guile.

"Nothing from the Reach; no movement and their scans haven't changed."

"It's not-. They haven't done a full conversion. There're New God systems, but they're… Too deep."

"Can you activate anything else?"

"Not precisely. I can… Try to push things, but that might do anything."

"Is there a New God onboard?"

"If there is, they're not connected to the systems. Do I proceed?"

There's a delay, with Colos presumably considering the risks again.

"Yes."

"Activating crumbler. Crumbler active, moving forward."

"No response from the Reach-."

"I have something. Not a New God system. I've-. There's someone on the ship who considers themselves one of us."

Zartok frowns. "We have a spy on board?"

"Darkstars are intelligence operatives." Colos sounds frustrated. "I wasn't made aware of any operatives amongst the Citizenry, but we weren't expecting to encounter this situation. Can you make contact?"

"Not unless they're another New God, and then I wouldn't be able to do much other than tell them that we're here. I.. could try to find a communication relay, or burrow deep enough to risk a radio transmission-."

"No. We don't have the Citizenry's ciphers. It wouldn't look like their internal transmissions."

"I can try finding part of their computer network. Since we don't have the schematic, I'll just be guessing where the cables are, but I should be able to avoid burrowing into a corridor."

"That will have to-. Hold."

I tense, then use my ring to access the ship's sensors.

A small flotilla just entered the system. Two destroyer escorts, a troop transport and a cruiser.

Energy readings on the cruiser suggest that there are two Scarab Warriors on board.

"Allyn, the Reach boarding party has arrived, and they're heading for the ship. If they dock, we'll have to disengage. Scarab Warriors have better sensors than most of their ships. Do what you can to patch into their systems, but be prepared to disengage at a moment's notice."

"I'll work as fast as I can."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:33 GMT

A slight pinch on my right forearm. I don't let it show as Agnie reaches out for a magnetic constrictor and I put it into her hand.

Exo-mantles were originally designed for stealth. Darkstars were supposed to be able to infiltrate worlds that the Reach were converting to their control, and carry out a guerrilla campaign in order to prevent it. They needed to be able to pass through checkpoints without obvious alien technology on them, and also to be able to switch into kill-mode if they were detected with enough power to actually kill things.

When we moved to a counter-intelligence role, we didn't have to hide so much. My usual exo-mantle had all but basic stealth stripped out for the phasing system. What I'm wearing right now is the stealth version, but since I'm still in the hazing stage of becoming a Citizen they haven't bothered looking too hard. With sensors; I'm not sure whether they were staring at the new girl in the showers to size me up or if they liked the look of me.

A twitch of my right arm, wait, and then two more, and I feel it as the mental uplink deploys around my neck. It's designed to not be immediately visible, and to look like a necklace if it does get noticed, but I can't help but feel self-conscious about having it active in enemy territory because I know we can detect things like this.

And I wait for the actual message. It's.. a little awkward, because the uplink puts it directly into the language centres of your brain and then you have to wait for your brain to actually process-

Confirm contact.

-what you didn't hear with your ears.

Darkstar Jade Nguyen.

Status request.

Infiltration: intelligence gathering. Uninjured, cover intact. Status request.

Stealth ship. Reach interior survey. Darkstar crew, Lantern escort. Undamaged. Concealed.

I didn't know we had ships that could hide well enough to enter Reach space like this. It doesn't sound-. What's the chance of them running into us? Not high, but I suppose that we would stand out compared to the Reach worlds around here.

Orders?

Status of boom tube generator.

Damaged, extent unknown. Bridge 'no-go' area.

Explain.

Captain is psycho.

Killable?

I might be able to kill her, but her bodyguards are actually good at their jobs. I don't think that I could beat all of them, and we don't have time for a proper duel. I need to know what's going on out there to decide if it's worth the risk.

Not by available assets. Status of Reach fleet?

Two battleships one mobile shipyard plus escorts. Scarabs and marines inbound, suspect boarders.

Damn it. With my regular exo-mantle I'd take a chance on one Scarab, but I doubt they want us in one piece so badly that they'd just keep throwing their elites at us single file. Reach marines aren't exactly a joke, but in a fight between them and the Citizen marines in narrow confines I'd bet on the Citizens.

Evacuation?

Difficult without boom tube. Crew repairs?

Basic. Suspect lack of knowledge to repair boom tube.

Information and assistance can be provided.

They've got someone who knows New God tech? Okay, that might makes things easier. But I still need to be able to convince the Captain to get off the bridge so we can work without getting killed. Hm.

The lighting improves a little and Agnie starts reattaching the protective plates. That's good, but it isn't going to make much difference to what's actually happening.

I put a hand on one of my daggers, just in case.

"Agnie, if you had a chance to leave, would you take it?"

"I couldn't go home. Not with what I've done."

"No. I can see that. But somewhere else."

"Did you do this?"

She actually sounds repulsed. Not sure why, as she clearly likes it here less than I do. "No. If I were going to sabotage a ship it would be one I wasn't standing on."

"Were you planning on leaving?"

"I like our chances better without the Captain or the Reach."

But, yes, I think my time infiltrating the Citizenry is over. I don't know what made our ship get caught, but I'm not all that broken up about it. Okay, maybe I'm not seeing them at their best here, but if this is what they're like I don't get how they've survived this long.

"Where would we even go?"

"I have… Friends. Who don't care about this sort of thing." She doesn't say anything. "Or if you really want we could try transferring to another Citizenry ship, but I don't think this place is good for you."

"No, I-." She pulls herself out of the deck and slides the maintenance hatch back into place. "What is your plan?"

"Does this ship have any sensors left?"

"No. They're either wrecked or so badly damaged that they can't transmit."

"The damaged ones. If you got to them, could you take the data directly from them?"

"Maybe? Why?"

"We need to get the Captain off the bridge. If we tell her that the Reach's marines finally showed up, that should get her moving."

"We could just-?"

"Lying would get her off the bridge for a minute tops, and then she'd have us killed."

"Okay. Okay." She taps her bracer, and brings up a map of the ship. Destroyed areas are in red, and… There aren't a lot of green places. She points to a yellow patch. "Here. This is our best bet. I don't know-. I won't be able to repair all of it, and the connection to the bridge is totally gone-."

"That's fine. Just do your best. If it's not there, we'll just have to race the Reach marines."

She nods, and takes off at a fast walk. Running would risk attracting attention, and she's a little short of protectors. I hang back slightly, happy for her to act as a lure because everyone I kill now is someone I don't have to kill later, when they're organised and aiming at me.

Acquired local engineer. Will attempt to access bridge. Time to marine/Scarab arrival?

8-12 minutes.

So, repair the sensor, convince the Captain, repair the boom tube-.

What do we want the boom tube for?

Escape with Citizenry ship, Citizenry prisoners.

How?

Boom tube Lanterns from our ship, tow Citizenry ship through tube.

…

I have to admire their optimism. And it would complete my mission, which would be good, because the Power Company has never sounded more appealing.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Now

Focus.

Don't think.

Focus.

Don't think.

It's easy to work like this, entirely in the now, all thought of what came before and what will come after banished from my mind. Who is that coward and traitor Agnie, who turned on her shipmates to live this half-life? Not me. Not here.

"How's it look?"

Even this, another act of betrayal, isn't something I would have done without someone pushing me. Cheshire didn't throw up her first blood porridge. Cheshire didn't shrink back from the first Citizens to challenge her. Cheshire saw a way-.

No. Don't think it.

"I can repair it enough to work. Without going outside."

"Good. I don't think the Reach are feeling that generous."

The auto-seals have worked, which is why the air is thin and we're breathing through masks rather than needing full suits. But I'm repairing by tearing out melted components and replacing them with similar parts I salvaged from other parts of the ship. Some sort of… Local power surge strong enough to arc past the surge protectors? And some EM spill over from the shields. There are probably… A lot of systems like this. And I doubt that the Reach have anything compatible.

"How much functionality do you want it to have before we call the bridge?"

"As much as we can. It needs to be completely clear that the Reach are about to board us."

"What if they're not?"

"Then we wait until they are. But I don't think we'll have to wait long."

"How-?"

Don'taskdon'tdrawattention!

"How..?"

"If we-. If we survive, you'll be a Citizen."

"What, because I killed Dulcya? I wasn't sure that's how it worked."

"Not just.. that. Your… Presence. Your purpose. If we live, the leaders will view you and find you worthy."

"Lucky me, but like I said, I plan on jumping ship."

A bit more power flowing. The connections are holding.

"How do you do it? Become…"

"How? Oh, that's easy. I was trained as a killer from birth. My species are considered adult at eighteen and I killed-. I murdered for the first time when I was fifteen. If you see enough violence close up, you just get-. Numb to it. It becomes your 'normal'. Have you finished?"

I nod as I complete the connections and use my bracer to restart the computer. Start up looks good.

"Yes. Just.. bringing it online now."

"Will the Reach be able to see?"

"Yes."

"Should we get out of this section before running the scan?"

"There's.. no point. They almost certainly knew the moment I got somewhere with the repairs."

"So they want us to see. I wonder why?"

The first returns of the scanner come back. The external components are damaged. If they make any active effort to hide, we won't see them. But-.

"There's-. There's a troop ship. It's heading for us."

"How about that? We should probably let the Captain know."

"How did-? You-? Know..?"

Cheshire's mask makes it impossible to read her facial expressions. But the set of her head makes me feel like I've asked a stupid question.

"Can we tell if they've got any Scarab Warriors with them?"

"No. No, those-. We'd need main sensors for that, and they were completely destroyed. We don't have the parts to rebuild the detection system."

"But they'll probably have a Scarab. At least one. Okay. Can you tell where they'll come from?"

I activate my bracer's hologram display, showing their location relative to us.

"Here. They know we don't have shields or point defences here, and their ships around this area are in position to shoot with small-sized weapons if we somehow push them back."

She nods. "Nice that they value our lives more than the lives of their boarding party. Are they transmitting any messages to us?"

"This system isn't-. Isn't designed to pick up messages. I-I can't-."

"That's fine." She-. She pats me on the shoulder-. Oh. "Don't worry about it. Let's get to the other side of the bridge and then signal the Captain."

I follow close behind her as we cross the ship-. The wreck. I see two other engineers working under the watchful eyes of their 'protectors', and I can see that their expressions are the same as mine. The others we see are soldiers, some trying to rest while others work on their weapons.

So, I'm… Cheshire's property, now. I… Don't think that she's taken anyone since she joined-. But if she's going to be made a full Citizen, maybe she thinks this is the time? Working on a ship with her would be better than working on a ship with-. Like this. If-.

"You're not my property."

What? "What?"

"Sorry." Cheshire glances back. "I forgot about the hand-on-the-shoulder thing. I just wanted to reassure you. Don't read too much into it."

Oh.

"Okay, this should do it." Cheshire finds a reasonably intact wall communications unit, and… Signals the bridge.

"WHAT?!"

"Captain. We got a sensor back in working order. Sending-"

"YOU'RE BOTHERING ME FOR-?!"

"-now, enemy boarding party incoming."

"Oh. Then I guess you get to live." The Captain smiles, cruelly. "Guess I better go welcome them. COME ON, BITCHES!"

The Captain steps away from the bridge monitor without bothering to deactivate it, letting me watch as she kicks a broken body out of the way as she heads for the door.

And there's the portal machine.

With a woman's head shoved half-way through it.

How am I supposed to-?

"Don't worry. We don't need the full thing. Just single person point-to-point."

"I… I can't-."

"You won't know until you try, and we don't really have any other options. And if the worst that can happen is the same as what happens if we do nothing, you may as well try."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:42 GMT

No guards outside of the bridge. Agnie readies her bracer to bypass the door control only for the door to open the moment she touches the control.

I could ask Agnie if the door controls were damaged, but I-.

I switch my mask controls so that they filter the smell. Usually I don't like doing that because every sense is important, but I don't think I'd be able to smell anything over the blood and… Waste.

It doesn't bother me, exactly. And from the way Agnie is headed right for the boom tube generator it looks like it doesn't bother her either, at least not enough to distract her. But there was a line from Paul's favorite book, something about assassins with no morals still having standards. This isn't even the work of a brute. Tuppence would have known better than to kill her own crew in this sort of situation. This is the work of a rabid animal.

Agnie doesn't just pull the woman's head out right away, probably because she doesn't want to risk making the damage even worse. I don't recognise her species, but I do a quick check to make sure that she's dead. No, I can see where the Captain gripped her skull hard enough to put her fingers through her skull. She's dead.

I step away to give Agnie some room and check the other bodies. A technician has a couple of tools and some small spare parts that I put within arm's reach of Agnie, but there's nothing else…

The navigator has a small hologram projector. Single image. I tap my mask to check it for traps, then press the activator.

I take a moment to compare the face of the woman in the family picture with the face of the corpse. And then I turn it off and put the projector back on her body. If we get out of this it can be buried with her.

One last body to check, which just happens to be next to the communications station. This one was stabbed in the neck, and I can tell from the spray exactly where she was standing when it happened. From the broken fingers and the footprints in the blood, it looks like she was trying to hold her neck wound closed. That can work if the victim gets immediate medical attention, but in a situation like this all it did was draw things out. Moving over to the console, I see that external communication is wrecked. Internal communication…

Report.

I smile. There we go.

On bridge. Captain plus bodyguards away.

Coming back?

No.

Repair status?

"Agnie, how does it look?"

"I don't understand this. I'm just pushing parts back and then gluing them into place."

Outlook poor.

Stand by.

"Are you talking to the Reach?"

The Reach would probably talk to me. But I don't want to encourage the Scarab Warrior to rush the bridge.

"No." I tap the buttons to make sure that internal communications aren't transmitting anything that we're saying. I don't think I have to worry about the current captain having an off-network secure monitoring system. I'm not even convinced that she knows how to use the regular one. "Friends."

Chance Reach will attack when tube activates. Prepare to flee through portal.

"Can your friends-?"

"Stand up and step away." She does at speed. "And get ready to run."

"Where?"

"If we're lucky, through a hole in space made by super-inflated gravitons."

She takes a stance, which I suppose is-
Assuming Control!
BOOM!

-all I can expect. The portal appears next to the boom tube generator, and Agnie runs straight into-.

An Orange Lantern's chest as they-. He, comes through from the other side. And just like that the mission is over and I activate my exo-mantle, the red and white costume appearing over my body in an eye-watering shimmer.

"Darkstar Nguyen." He checks Agnie for a moment as she cringes back, then focuses on the boom tube generator, construct tools appearing around him. "I'm Lantern Allyn. The Illustres recruited me."

"Generally, you shouldn't tell people things like that. Agnie, lock the doors. Everyone must have heard-"

My exo-mantle receives a message from the Darkstar ship about half a second before the ship shakes.

"-that." Allyn is already fusing the generator back into shape while Agnie is paralysed with indecision. Run or stay and help. "Lock the doors, then you can go through."

She gives me a nervous nod, then scurries over to the door controls.

"Lantern, can you fix it?"

"I don't know."

"Have you done this before?"

"No."

"How long are we giving it before we give up?"

"If the Reach start shooting, tear this out of the deck and get through-"

Agnie uses her cutting torch on the door control panel and then awkwardly creeps towards the tube-.

"-the tube." I nod. "Go, go, thank-" She runs through the tube "-you. They won't just shoot her, right?"

"She'll be in a small compartment next to the hull. There isn't anyone else there." The generator looks… A bit more together than it was, but-.

The light on the internal communications panel blinks. The Captain almost certainly heard that, but she should be occupied with the Reach soldiers right now. So why haven't the Reach started shoot-?

Chime!

I dive forward, twisting in the air as I do so to bring my maser to bear. The dull blue of the Scarab Warrior's tibia blade scythes through where I just stood as they rise through the deck. Was the captain trying to warn me? And now I feel a little bad.

My maser shot goes through the Scarab Warrior's head, whatever it's using to phase saving it from being hit. Don't know if that would have actually killed it; normal masers take a couple of hits to pierce their armor and this is the scaled down model. I also don't have the strength boosters or flight system a normal exo-mantle would have, and that's why fighting Scarabs is usually a Lantern's job.

And the Scarab knows it. I see it assess me and deprioritize me a moment before Allyn's construct sword swings at it and forces it to parry.

For an instant I wonder why Allyn didn't just smash it into the wall with a pneumatic ram, then I remember that I'm used to what Paul can do.

Right. My x-ionised sword should still go through its armor if I hit it at the right moment. I need to keep back and-.

The bridge door explodes as another Scarab charges inside!

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:45 GMT

"Allyn to Zartok. Both Scarabs, close quarters."

I fly as fast as I can through the ship, Grood only a short distance behind me, cursing under my breath as I go.

Could the cannibals not hold the attention of a single one?!

"Drusa, keep monitoring!"

"Yes. For what?"

"Anything-"

A woman not on our crew climbs out of the hatch to the outer hull. She's unarmed, and unless she's a highly trained liar she's a coward too. I pull her out of the way and then dive for the portal.

"-relevant."

Glaive.

I pass through the portal as the larger Scarab Warrior charges Allyn's weak construct barrier, my glaive's edge projecting a phase disruption field as I dive under the Warrior's arm and swing at its back. It responds by charging faster, my swing merely nicking its armour instead of slicing through its spine. With the Scarab distracted Allyn is able to reposition himself while focusing his efforts on getting the boom tube generator to work.

I create a shield as the other Scarab decides to endure the Darkstar's maser to take a shot at me-.

The shot destroys my construct shield, though it fails to actually penetrate.

"Orange, Green?" The smaller Scarab twists like a tumbler to avoid the Darkstar's sword, firing three shots at Allyn as it does so. His shield stops one and fails, and I'm forced to create multiple shields of my own to block the other two. "I can't tell-"

I slash at the larger Scarab as it shifts its back to project a force field. My glaive is deflected, so I spin it and change the blade to the other end.

"-the difference between-"

Cutting low, I slice through the left greave as the Scarab clumsily turns. Ah, it lost its flight system to make the force field. It stumbles as it turns, but the injury will knit itself back together before long.

"-different colours of meat."

The large Scarab pushes off its uninjured leg, flying towards me and towards the boom tube generator behind me. I smile and ignore it, lunging at the smaller and more talkative Scarab, who is forced to switch from a blade to a pistol to shoot out my spear. No matter.

I swing my arms as if the spear were still there, reforming it with a phasic blade as the Scarab attempts to disengage. Behind me, the larger one has realised that something is wrong and switches its back module from a force field generator to a flight system.

Meaning that when Grood barrels into it through the portal, it has no momentum with which to evade.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHR!"

Grood's only construct is a construct Grood, enhancing his already impressive strength and toughness to superlative levels. The larger Scarab has hit the wall before it's fully processed what is happening, and Grood's far faster with his phasic blade-tipped claws than it is with its morphed shields. It gets a gash along its side before it can interpose the first, then a gash to the face as it drops its guard too low. The shield then extends but Grood has already switched to grabbing and pulling like a frenzied molath and the Scarab hasn't anchored itself properly.

Good.

The smaller scarab appears to think that if it swings at me with blades from all of its limbs that will in some way threaten me. Its right arm blade swings down, cutting into the deck as I jink aside and thrust forward with my spear. The blade retracts and the Scarab spins clockwise, ducking around my spear and slashing with its leg-blades. I reverse my spear and parry each of them, the Scarab allowing its spin to be countered and flapping its wings to gain space.

The Darkstar takes the opportunity to slash at its wings, slicing through the left wing before the Scarab can cover it with its elytra armour.

Wings.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHR!"

Heat washes over me from the larger Scarab firing a plasma weapon at point blank range to try and force Grood back. It works, for all the good it's going to do, and melts about a third of the room-.

The Darkstar suddenly pulls back, keeping-. Her armour isn't rated for that level of discharge. I suppose it's unreasonable to expect infiltrators to fight on the front line.

"Darkstar." I bombard the smaller Scarab with energy pulses, preventing them from attacking as they're forced to shield themselves. "Disengage."

She doesn't move immediately, instead taking a stance-.

"Do you require assistance?"

The body of a Reach marine flies through the bridge door, hitting Grood in the side and breaking in half, spraying swiftly-cooking viscera across the room.

"WHY YOU RUNNING, BEETLE BOYS?!"

"Do you?"

The New God commanding officer. I did wonder what god-blood looked like. "No."

The smaller Scarab reforms its other arm into a gun and fires at me around its shield, forcing me to-. To block with control panels torn from the ship in order to shield Allyn, because it is clearly using a construct disruptor and simple mass is better at resisting it.

I will express my gratitude to the Illustres for teaching me that at his funeral.

The Darkstar moves towards the door, ducking around the flailing limbs of the large Scarab and Grood, who appear to have both anchored themselves to the floor to better flail at each other. The Scarab isn't bothering with a shield any longer, just accepting the blows on its thickened armour in order to strike Grood, who seldom defends himself in any case. I can't help but be a little stirred at the sight of two fearless warriors unleashing their full strength without hesitation.

"WHO SAID-?!"

The New God is wearing green armour with strange lines running across it, and carrying a mace of some sort which she uses to parry the Darkstar's attack without looking around. The move is so instinctive to her that she actually looks a little surprised when she sees who she parried.

Then she smiles.

"For me?"

Then she backhands the Darkstar, sending her flying.. directly through the portal. I suppose that gets her to safety, and her head was reasonably well protected.

"Darkseid's balls, I wasn't even aiming-. Guess I'll just have to kill the rest of you."

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHR!"

The Scarab gives up on weaker hits and switches to giant rams for its arms, striking Grood in the chest hard enough to crack his ribs through his construct. Grood responds by dragging his claws through the Scarab's head from the back, tearing out its eyes along the way. Not necessarily fatal; the Scarab implant is usually located on the spine and can restore a great deal of damage-.

"Midget-bug, go fight the other Lantern! I want this one!"

Grood tries to claw at the front of the large Scarab's face, but its armour has thickened again and Grood's own movements are visibly slower. Even its impaired motions are enough to fend him off.

I sneer at the godling.

"Who are you to demand anything?"

"I'm Knockout." She hefts her mace. "Now guess what I'm going to do."

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:47 GMT
Fight!
Bunch of play-acting Lowlies…
Fight!
The midget-bug backs away from the one-eyed Lantern. He doesn't want to show us his back, but he wants to do what I tell him.
Fight!
Being in charge is great! I didn't think I'd like it when Grayven sent me here, but between killing my Lowlies for incompetence and killing Reach Lowlies for being there, it's turned out okay! And since there's hardly anyone still alive, I'm clearly great at it!
Fight!
The one-eyed Lantern pulls a face. "This is foolish."
Fight!
But Granny Goodness didn't raise any fools. Who survived.
Fight!
"No! Your young old god is fixing my ship up real good! So I shouldn't kill him until he finishes. And Grayven keeps saying he wants a bug-. Alive-ish. So all I have to do is kill you and I've done everything I'm supposed to!"
Fight!
"And what of your crew?"
Fight!
What?
Fight!
"They just came with the place."
Fight!
"Then at least you're loyal to your master."
Fight!
Hah!
Fight!
"You mean Grayven? I only do what he says because Granny told me to."
Fight!
"Fidelity to your elders?"
Fight!
"Ah, no, I only do what she says because I'll be horribly tortured if I don't."

And Darkseid might notice me, but he doesn't need to know that.

"You disgust me profoundly. Do you at least know how to fight?"
Fight!
"Yah-h-"
Fight!
And just like that, a bunch of spiky things are sticking out of my face. Or trying to. This armour's pretty good, and I'm pretty tough.
Fight!
"-uh."
Fight!
Eyes sting a bit, but I can just brush the orange things off. But I guess that means we're starting!
Fight!
I lunge, mace swinging to go right through this guy. He's quick though, and gets out of the way, just in time for me to push off my left leg and spin-kick him across the room.
Fight!
Thought he'd last longer than-. Oh, no, he's still alive. Great! I leap across the room, mace raised!
Fight!
And he puts up a pike construct which hits me right in the belly. And breaks, heh, so he flies away again.
Fight!
"Mm."
Fight!
"You don't seem to be doing so good yours-."
Fight!
Guh?
Fight!
There's something in my mouth and throat and I'm going to be-
Fight!
"Guhh!"
Fight!
I try to vomit but can't, Pit's sake, smash the stupid orange-.
Fight!
"Uh. Gah!"
Fight!
"Your internals aren't much more vulnerable. Brute force it is, then."
Fight!
I throw up in my mouth, and there's blood in it, and my gums are aching. That's more than the last few idiots I've fought managed.
Fight!
I lunge as he reforms his spear and then flies aside when I bring my mace down. But he's still in range of my-. Ow!
Fight!
This time he dodged my leg and sliced through my leg armour! His constructs are actually strong enough to hurt-.
Fight!
The midget-bug shoots him with its construct destroyer, but he avoids that too and lets it hit me. It doesn't do anything because I'm not a Lantern, but I guess someone is done with our truce. The other Lantern is sort of scrabbling along the floor-
Fight!
"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHR!"
Fight!
-as midget-bug reconsiders his life choices and I leap at him and smash!
Fight!
He leaps aside but even as the deck craters I'm swinging again and he can't dodge fast enough! I hit him in the leg and he goes flying!
Fight!
And.. turns in the air, bends his legs to absorb the impact of the wall and then dives at me-.
Fight!
Ugh. Some sort of… Arm… Thing, hits me in the head.
Fight!
Plant feet and punch!
Fight!
The Lantern spears me through the arm with his spear, but I don't destroy the construct. No, I grab it and pull him closer.
Fight!
"Hey."
Fight!
And headbutt him in the eye!
Fight!
And punch him! Don't knock him away, use god magic to keep him there as he takes hits like a-.
Fight!
Stand-! Still-!
Fight!
"More primal than my usual-"
Fight!
A hammer?
Fight!
"-choice of weapon-"
Fight!
"-but if this is what it takes-"
Ffffugggh?
"-then so be it!"

Aaaargghhhhhoooooooow.

Lost the mace. Right arm's… Not working. Lantern's fighting the… The bug-midget. And it looks like there are four of them..? I…

Why aren't I..? Up yet?

No. Get up. No magic healing in the Armagetto. I'm a warrior, and I'm going to walk it off.

Arm's worse than I thought. He stabbed out most of the nerves and broke the bones. Guess I really pissed him off. And-.

Wait. Wait. I see what he's-.

"Yes, detecting the New God technology-" He turns his spear into an axe as he traps the bug-midget's left wing and cuts through it, severing it from his backpack… Thing. "-in this ship was easy once I was on board. A few stabs later and suddenly you can barely stand up straight. Nothing to convey power to you."

I wasn't using their power anyway, but he's not completely wrong. I can't feel the ship-. Their godling took the boom tube generator! I didn't even feel it until now!

Darkseid's shit-encrusted arsehole!

The midget-bug shoots at him and he blocks with wreckage-.

WOOMPF!

Bad move. This time the bug used a positron ray and the whole thing exploded! I go flying backwards, but the wall's so melted that it actually cushions me. Okay.

Ah, thinking. I don't like this.

So the bugs want to drag me off to the Reach, brainwash me into giving them the secrets of New God technology and then force me to fight for them. So, basically the same as I have now, except I don't know the secrets of New God technology and they'll probably kill me when they work that out. If Grayven doesn't kill me first. The Lanterns already have New Gods, so they don't need me at all. Or I could grab the boom tube generator myself and take a break on some out of the way planet while they get busy killing each other.

Grayven will care far less about desertion than treason.

I cock my good fist and dive for the Lantern working on the generator!

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:49 GMT
…to where I want to go.
I am not an engineer. I have heard that Cousin Hephaestus still lives on Earth, and if this is what is expected from me I will ask to spend time there studying under him. But everything appears to be-

WOOMPF!

-in ordershieldharder. Without a connection to the crew I'm not sure if it's even possible to open a ship-scale boom tube…

No, wait, I have a bond to the Darkstar crew. That… May be sufficient?

My ship had an actual control panel which could be manually operated. Perhaps this is a security-?

I have a fraction of a second warning before the New God Captain punches straight through my barrier.

"Hey, Lowlie!"

Armour!

She grabs me by the neck and spins, using my construct armour to absorb shots from the first scarab. Just a positron ray, so it doesn't do much to a construct. Sword, my sword is-. In her hand, and she's thrown it aside.

"Are we ready to go?"

"No, it's more complicated than simply turning it on. How do you not know this?"

She-. EH! She slams my face into the deck, my construct just about surviving the impact!

"Lowlies don't talk back."

Apokoliptian. I didn't think that Lowlies could use New God technology anymore than Karrakanians without Rhea's blood could.

"How do you expect me to make a machine I've never seen before work, then?"

OWF!

"Make it work."

I don't.. think that she is more educated in using this technology than I am. If she cannot feel it, or only feels it in an approximate sense, then I may be able to fool her.

"Where would you like to go?"

"Wherever Grayven is."

"I don't know where Grayven is."

"Out of Reach space, then."

"I can do that. How do you intend to move the ship?"

"Huh?"

"Boom tubes are static. You need to fly the ship through it. This ship is a wreck with no engines."

"Oh, that's easy. I rigged the back half of the ship to explode! There should be enough mass around the bridge to let us survive for a few seconds, then I'm home free."

"But they'll shoot the moment the-"

Lantern Zartok flies past behind her, frantically weaving around shots from both Scarab Warriors. The one on the ground doesn't really seem to be responding, but the symbiote appears to have made its arm gun work.

I can't see Grood.

"-tube opens."

"So you better make sure it shows up real close."

"If I could time the explosives as well-."

I barely even wince this time.

"It needs to be timed just right or we won't make it!"

"You won't make it. I'll be fine."

"Not if we're past the opening point when it opens."

"I'm pretty sure I can jump for it. Now open it!"

The Maltus system is the obvious place to try and take it. Its location is commonly available knowledge on every world in the region; the Reach have captured Darkstars before and they already know about our fleet build-up. Taking Scarabs there won't involve giving them information they don't already possess. But if something goes wrong with the boom tube I don't really want to create a route from Reach space to our capital world.

There are a number of worlds with L.E.G.I.O.N. fleets with Orange Lanterns attached to them. Such a flotilla would be able to control this situation easily, once we are away from the Reach fleet. If we had some way to communicate with them in advance, it may even be worth opening a tube to bring them here rather than the reverse-.

No. This device could not make a boom tube large enough for Lantern Mother of Mercy.

"I need to touch the device."

She looks at me for a-.

BOH!

Wha-?

She-. She punched me in the head hard enough to shatter my construct and-.

Agh!

"No you don't." She slams me face first into the floor, now without a construct barrier. "Now do-."

There should still be a fleet at Tillettit, and it's far enough away from anything vital that it's as good a place to go as any I know.

Open the W-.

Ah! She picked me up and slammed me down again, and now she's continuing to press!

"Not there, obviously." "You think I can't hear you like this?"

My sword's over there. If I can get-.

I fall to the floor as she loses hold of me. Scrabbling free, I see her staring at the sword halfway through her arm. And the fully armoured Darkstar holding it and trying to pull it back.

Open the Way.

BOOM!

I fly from the bridge, searching for the explosives or a good place to create an impeller construct to-.

"Drusa to Lanterns. Brace."

I brace myself against the corridor walls as the ship jumps forward. My ring shows me the Reach ships torn between not shooting at all, shooting at the debris field or shooting at the forward part of the ship where their Scarab Warriors are. A moment later they've failed to do anything with sufficient vigour and we're through.

Open the Way.

BOOM!

Oh dear.

 

[Mr Zoat]

18th January 2013
23:51 GMT

I fly through the ship towards the boom tube.

"Drusa to Colos, I'm heading to the Citizenry ship."

"Cut the tether before you go. We'll be moving off once you're off the ship."

That's probably wise. Allyn might be able to keep the camouflage effect going while he's on the Citizenry ship, but if he moves through a boom tube in another part of the universe that situation might change.

"Understood." That shouldn't be-.

A female Darkstar is hurriedly donning the last parts of her exo-mantle, a woman I don't recognise shooting her with a purple beam-. A purple healing ray. This must be Darkstar Nguyen, the Illustres' lover. She wasn't part of the crew, which… Means that she was under cover on the Citizenry ship. She makes eye contact with me an instant before she clamps her helmet into place, and I crouch down next to the hull and picture the orange light moving ethereally through the hull and ingesting the tether.

"I'll deal with the Captain. You keep the ship in one piece."

I nod as I armour myself, then take the purple healing ray from the woman holding it. I don't know if Nguyen has the authority to give me orders, but she's the agent on-site and probably knows more about the situation than I do. Her head snaps back to the boom tube as she draws her-. Sword? Probably an Earth-sword with some sort of nonsensical ability.

Nguyen walks through the door cautiously, sword at the ready. I float through after her, ready to evade immediately if I need to.

Nguyen has her sword through the arm of a woman in green armour, presumably the captain. Local monitoring shows that the room is far too hot and radioactive for a conventional humanoid to survive unprotected, and the fact that Nguyen's sword won't come out shows that she's clearly tougher than most people.

BOOM!

No one would be stupid enough to open a boom tube without-

I catch sight of Grood crouched against a work station, clearly injured. I point the healing ray at him and fire it as Allyn flies off and Nguyen abandons her sword to duck under the captain's fist before shooting her in the face with her masers.

-a way to move the ship. None of us are in position, so the system designed to move the ship must already be in place because the Reach will shoot us dead if it isn't. Scan for-. Explosives? Calculate. Okay, technically-.

Alert! Reach ships-.

"Drusa to Lanterns. Brace."

The ships vibrates as the flaws in the explosive placements and the weakness in what's left of the hull make the explosive thrust uneven. All the explosives went off so I can't navigate with those-.

In slow motion in front of me Nguyen steps past the captain's swing and recovers her sword-. The captain's body was holding it in place by putting pressure on both sides of the sword without touching the blade itself. When she moved the arm the pressure was released. Zartok… Dances between the shots fired by one Scarab and the blade strikes of another, though he doesn't seem to have space to counterattack properly. The captain turns with Nguyen's movement, but-. She's not trying to hit Nguyen, she's-
Move. NOW!
BOOM!

-trying to open another boom tube. Has opened another boom tube.

I don't know whether destroying the generator shuts the tube down or not.

BOOM!

A new boom tube opens on the bridge, a huge figure-. That's Grayven. And whatever we thought happened to him and his ship, it looks like he's in perfect health.

The captain grins excitedly and she parries a swing from Nguyen, her counter going right through Nguyen's head as she phases. The Scarab Warrior fighting Zartok suddenly spins away, his armour morphing into a new gun which he-.
End.
Grayven's eyes flash red, a jagged line connecting him to the Scarab. The Scarab's armour… Evaporates, revealing a naked Reachian beneath.

"Lowlie."

"Hey, b-!"

"I see that my father's spy is still aboard." He looks at her with an expression of total contempt. "You are free to keep her."

The captain stops grinning.

"And I will do you the favour of shutting the boom tubes before the Reach fleet organises themselves to pursue you."

Zartok snarls.

"We do not need your pity."

Grayven turns his gaze upon Zartok. Muzzle the Yapping Hound.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHR!"

Grood's back on his feet. I.. don't think that picking a fight with someone like Grayven is a good idea. From the sound of it-. Was he the one who sabotaged the ship? We suspected that he didn't have a good relationship with Darkseid from the obvious lack of other Apokoliptian ships, but… If Darkseid was spying on him or foisting unwanted attendants on him...

Grood slashes into the flesh of the wounded Scarab, tearing through armour and flesh and-. Ripping the Scarab device out of its central nervous system in a shower of cerebrospinal fluid.

"HHHHHHHHRG!"

We've got an active Scarab implant? That's a major-

The Scarab glows for a moment and then decays into ash.

-victory.

Grayven looks around the bridge, the glow in his eyes fading slightly. Then he turns and walks back through his boom tube, which snaps closed behind him.

"How dare you treat me like a thrall!"

Zartok glows brilliantly for a moment, his corona billowing as if he were planning to throw orange spears at the air where Grayven had been standing. Then he dims and stalks towards the heavily wounded Knockout. She doesn't seem to know what to do, though her wounds don't seem to bother her in the least.

"Knockout. It appears that you have been abandoned."

"How.. dare he? How dare he?!"

"Fairly readily, it would appear. If you-?"

"You can't just… Refuse a gift from Darkseid! It's unthinkable!"

"To you, perhaps. Not to Grayven. Can I take it that you aren't feeling particularly loyal to either the Citizenry or to Grayven at the moment?"

"Yes. I'll betray them both." She turns and grins at Darkstar Nguyen. "If this little sneak is the one who interrogates me. I like her attitude."

"That can be arranged. Drusa, contact Maltus. Tell them… Mission accomplished."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 561 937.M41

I remember watching a video on YouTube about the French Revolution many years ago. The various contributors were discussing how the Committee for Public Safety went madder and madder and more and more murderous, and how that tied into other revolutionary philosophies. And most of them sounded like that fact was why they were very sceptical about revolutionary philosophy, because they'd seen where it led.

Except the Russian chap, who sounded like he thought it was great and completely appropriate to randomly murder people in order to maintain an atmosphere of fear that would make people reluctant to act against the revolutionary state.

"VILE HERETIC!"

My construct barrier wavers as… Some sort of energy field disrupting ammunition strikes it. Not actual Vindicare Temple shield-breaker rounds… I think. I'm too mobile to be a good target for temple assassins, so aside from one testicle-retraction-inducing encounter with a Callidus Assassin which I think was more an attack of opportunity I haven't been targetted. As far as I remember, shield breaker ammunition would break a shield whatever it was made of and these rounds clearly haven't.

My construct boyz swarm the Storm Trooper position, taking several hits before-

Waaaaaagh!

-evaporating, while their brethren slam into their targets with… With 'smackers', and begin clubbing them into compliance.

Some inquisitors are hard people in a hard line of work, confronting covert threats to the Estate Imperium. They're usually late to the party, fighting mutants, aliens, heretics and traitors in entrenched positions in the societies they inquisite in a desperate race to prevent some great catastrophe. Or they contain in their mind dangerous knowledge that is vital to a conflict but would corrupt a person of lesser devotion or will.

The old quote 'Some may question your right to destroy ten billion people. Those who understand realise that you have no right to let them live!' isn't a dark joke or the ranting of some edgelord. I've seen Imperial loyalists burn a faithful world from orbit to destroy a reactivating Necron tomb buried underneath and I've seen what can happen when tombs like that reactivate and I agree that it was the correct course of action.

And some Inquisitors are like this arsehole.

I look at one of the holding cells, where the people were pushed inside until there was no space left at all, the bodies of the people closest to the bars… Partially pressed through. There's no one alive in there, but they… They could have lived for quite a while.

No sign of mutation or genetic corruption on any of them. No Eye of Horus tattoos, or other signs of religious heresy. A couple have genetic traits associated with low level psykers, but nothing above Mu level. Even the Inquisitor's own records just say that 'the will of the ineffable Master of Mankind drew them to my attention' and other just non-justifications.

This man didn't solve problems. He created them. And now I've got to deal with one.

Gremlin clanks up the corridor as the last of the Storm Troopers are… Um, detained. What he's wearing… We managed to acquire a couple of oddboyz to see what happened when they were exposed to him, on the grounds that they would be less hassle to contain than regular boyz. The results have been… Interesting, and the relatively smooth power armour he's now wearing is a marked departure from the way ork mega armour usually looks. It looks like armour and not randomly attached bits of industrial machinery, for a start.

"Looks like the boyz did good, Boss."

A mental impulse from me and they begin dragging the recumbent guardsmen out to the waiting detainment units. Technically, this is a Tau Empire-loyal human world invading its Imperium-loyal human neighbour, and as a result of the sheer barbarity of the rulers to their subjects they're not having any trouble finding collaborators. Earth-caste engineers will go through their… Horrendously brutal factories later to see what modifications can be made in terms of health and safety improvements…

They were literally cooking the foundry workers alive, for goodness sake.

I nod absent-mindedly. I'm not looking forward to the next bit, but that's my job.

"Boyz will be boyz."

The most deeply fortified cell is just ahead of me. The Storm Troopers were actually using the outer fortifications for cover, and-.

Ring charging. Capacitors at seventy six percent.

And something warp-related started happening here the moment Kais killed that flipping Inquisitor, which probably means that the wards were tied to his own psychic powers. And the Storm Troopers were stationed here rather than manning the outer defences.

Ring charging. Capacitors at seventy seven percent.

Artefact or psyker? Don't know. It's interfering with my scans. Gremlin is only here because as an orkoid he's a lot more resistant to this sort of thing than tau or most humans.

"Lotta sacrifices, boss. Didn't look loik that sorta Inquisitor."

Ritual sacrifices are best for sorcery, but actually? Just killing a lot of people in the same place works. The veil draws thin, and the next thing you know…

The ring defeats the lock on… Yes, it's a null chamber, as Gremlin readies his positron gun. Klaxon and warning lights as the heavy metal door slowly opens, my armour ready for any attack.

Ring charging. Capacitors at seventy eight percent. Capacitors at seventy nine percent.

Oh dear.

Scarlet and purple light streams out, moving in waves and leaving an odd ripple texture on any surface it touches. We've got a full on veil-piercing here, and that's a bad sign. The hole itself is manageable; this isn't my first time closing one. This issue is that every vaguely psychic person is going to start hearing the voices, if they weren't already.

A light stream touches my construct armour-

Capacitors at eighty percent.

-and gets absorbed as I push forward, Gremlin hanging back to cover me.

"Is there anyone in there? Please, try to remain calm, we're here to rescue you."

My boot hits a chain on the floor, links made from some psychically retardant material cut clean through and the remains of its purity seals melted on to the floor.

"Try imagining a wall. On the other side of the wall is a raging ocean, but where you are is calm."

Captured Imperial psykers haven't been entirely consistent in what they think they're allowed to share, but some just start muttering their mantras when their own powers start acting up.

"If you can hear my voice, please respond!"

The colours are fading slightly, and I can see the outline of the room. Looks like there's… Yes, an enhanced interrogation suite, Inquisition style. Clamps, chains, an excruciator, what's left of a scribe servitor… But they knew he didn't know anything! There wasn't anything he could tell them and they didn't believe otherwise. This was just… Horribly torture a man because that's the next step. And they don't even have the excuse that most Imperial organisations do about procedure being holy writ; the Inquisition is expressly empowered to go against that.

They just didn't care to.

Okay, I can't see anyone. They could be hiding themselves, but it's more likely that they're further into the warp.

A step from the real. Alright, let's do this.

"I'm coming for you! Please, come this way!"

The world ripples as the real pulls away and-.

A colossal arm of burning metal and slag punches through the materium and grabs onto me, pulling me into no-space before a vast daemonic face!

"Ave, domine."

And the real vanishes as I'm pulled deeper.

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 561 937.M41

I'm..! Burning!

Every part of my… AGH! Skin is… I can see welts-. No, that's… That's my armour, my armour has blisters and I can feel the blood draining and the fat dripping and the pus oozing! The pain in my eye sockets is incredible but I can still see…

RING!

AH!

Ah!

I'm not better, I'm not healed, but the pain is reduced to manageable levels. My injuries are glowing-.

"Advena."

Then the daemon hurls me away, and for a moment I foolishly assume that I'm heading back into reality. Instead, I hit-.

OW!

Hit a solid metal surface, my blisters tearing open again. Uh, the first version I read of the death of Horus described his armour as bleeding wherever Sanguinius cut it with his sword. And now I know how that felt. My armour's bruised, despite the ceramite being solid plates… Until a few moments ago. Now it and I are one and the same, and I need to-.

A piston screams towards me and I fly-.

Doesn't work!

I frantically scramble out of the way, the metal plate clipping my right leg-

CRACK!

-andagh! I grab a nearby support pillar and pull myself to my feet, avoiding putting any weight onto my newly broken leg. And I'm painfully aware that while I can charge myself with warp energy I can't just punch a hole back into reality myself.

The huge metal daemon is looking down at my form… From a hole in the roof and far wall of some sort of hellish manufacturing plant. Its face… The skin is like peeling… Metal? As if a coating was partially rubbed off. Around the joints I can see leaking lubricant fluid, and its mechanical eyes judder as they track me. Some parts of its body look like they're missing, as if whoever was making it gave up before they finished, cables and tubing left hanging free. I can actually see through it in a few places.

"What do you want?"

"We have known dark times. We have known strife."

Screech!

I glance up and hobblehobblehobble!

The industrial crucible crashes down and overturns, spilling molten metal across the floor towards me! Spotting a ladder on the side of a giant machine of some kind I hop at it and lunge, grabbing the furthest rung I can manage with both hands and hauling myself up just ahead of the glutinous slag!

"To live in these times is to have expendable life."

"Yeah, it's not called the-" Up, up. "-grim dark future because it's all puppies and rainbows."

The ladder's heating up and burning my hands, but it's nothing compared to what I got hit with when I first arrived.

"Where progress and humanity are replaced with brutality."

"Look, if you're trying to tailor a corruption narrative to fit me, you're going to have to try harder than that. I've got the orange light and the tau. I don't need-."

And that's when I spot that the rungs of the ladder are made of metal-coated human arms, reaching out from a machine whose outer surface is made of layers of metalised human skin.

Even for the Mechanicus…

"-Chaos or Chaos worshippers."

What god is it from? The decaying metal and comparatively laid back manner suggests Nurgle. But Nurgle daemons are usually a lot more overt about their decay, and this thing is more… Like damage from long term lack of maintenance rather than an infection or fungal growth. Its form is relatively stationary and rather… Bland, which implies that it's not Tzeentch. It's talking and there aren't skulls everywhere so Khorne's out, and while Slaanesh loves pain as much as everything else this is all a bit mundane.

I doubt that it's Malal given that we're in the warp, but since there aren't any other daemons around I suppose it's a 'maybe'. Which leaves other lesser chaos powers like Mo'rcck, Phraz-Etar or An'sl and I've got no idea what their daemons look like, or this could be a daemon of Chaos Undivided. If it's a regular daemon, it would have grown from a patch of undifferentiated energy not associated with the four. Or if it's an actual Daemon Prince, a being marked equally by each of the four, or a creature that absorbed and internalised enough warp energy to transcend its mortal origins without the four.

None of which helps me.

"Where the will of the few dictate the lives of the many."

"That's just human culture, I'm afraid."

"But a secret promise is made to those who are dauntless."

Oh. He came from that planet. Did the Inquisitor find a cultist by accident? I know that the princedom threshold is a bit lower for demagogues than it is for astartes, but there wasn't a cult here. They still have to do something, and getting tortured while someone else kills the Inquisitor wouldn't be enough.

I pull myself up on top of whatever this is a moment before the hands unclasp and the sheets of metal skin begin peeling off. Grabbing a control lectern for stability I look up at the daemon.

"Bit surprised it bothers you, though. Who are you?"

Its many robotic eyes move independently, taking in the whole of the factory. Some rotate further, and through the warp-stuff around it I can dimly make out more factories behind and above it.

"For at the end of days, they shall be found..."

Man-shaped metal sheets fly through the air towards the daemon as it spreads its arms wide to welcome them.

"Faultless."

They hit the daemon and flatten themselves against its skin, covering its metal plates and cables. To start with it just looks odd, but as more and more build up it changes the misshapen metal into a near-smooth humanoid.

What am I seeing?

I don't know.

I grab a metal person-sheet as it tugs against its mooring and try using my ring to learn something about it.

Damn this wretched world that I call my home.

And I feel it, feel the years, decades, centuries of the same cycles of suffering and misery. But they don't hope or despair, because it's all they know. They can't imagine anything else-. Or couldn't, until they were murdered by an Inquisitor and their souls were set loose into the warp.

Where they formed a bridge. Centred around-.

I let the flapping sheet go, and it flies around to cover the daemon's back. Or if I guess right, the newly ascendant daemon prince's back. That last prisoner, drawing the fragments of the souls of those who shared his misery into itself to fuel its ascension. And as far as I can tell, they're entirely willing to be consumed in that way, to get revenge at those who made their lives what they were.

The daemon above me flexes its limbs as the flayed metal skin finishes coating its new body, and I can see the edges smooth out as they fully integrate into its being.

And then it looks up, at the still open hole back to reality.

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 561 937.M41

"That's not a good idea!"

Once the daemon leaves, it will lose control of this patch of the warp. The factory should decay away and then I'll be free to follow it out. But that's a big daemon. It'll burn through its power at an accelerated rate; giant daemons are rare, but they occur frequently enough that there are records. Angron himself had to call a halt to his offensive on Armageddon when his horde started evaporating from lack of warp energy.

And the massive ritual sacrifices he made to correct the problem must have saved the Administratum years.

The purges… Yes, that might work!

"I, who am Faultless, was subject to the foulest of mistreatment at the hands of arrogant masters! And now, I will return bearing the wrath their deeds have earned."

"The Inquisitor's dead!" Its head jerks down, eyes staring at me. "We already killed him!"

"He was MINE!"

"We didn't know you existed! I came to the prison to free and heal you, and any others who were still alive!"

The daemon leans down, right hand resting on a part of the now-skeletal factory wall. Out of the corner of my eye I spot that the wall… Fills out, becoming whole and… Cleaner, as if it were newly made rather than subject to Hive City decay.

"I will be the judge."

Warning! Mental-

My mind becomes a square. Ridged lines form between evening meal, washing and sleeping, and those lines are solid and fixed. But the other lines are made of the myriad of different actions and situations I am in for the rest of the day, and the square-.

My face hits the deck just as the vomit leaves my helmet-mouth.

Wrong! Wrong! The square doesn't work, can't catch, every moment it tried to force what was there into a pattern where no pattern exists. Travelling and fighting nearly hold, but the differences in foes and locations still tear it apart.

I try pushing myself up

Travel-. Travel- Traaaaaaaaaaa-.

and the daemon slumps and I can think clearly-. Nearly clearly, again.

Can't just ring the vomit away, not while the daemon is imposing its version of reality on this place. But… Rag, and water, because that's what they'd use to clean up messes in the factory.

There. I splash some water-. Polluted water, across my face and armour, then use the rag to wipe as much away as possible. Given the state of my leg-. I can't fix it because no one would waste time giving a low-hive factory worker medical aide. Splint? Yes. Alright. And crutch. And hobble upright and make sure I tell Tsua'm and Bo'ohk to prioritise medical aid once I get out.

"Did you..? See what you needed?"

It closes its eyes, jaw working and expression pained.

"I saw a universe of colour, such as I have never seen before. I saw possibilities and a shifting, inconstant soul. I saw xenos showing more consideration and kindness than my own masters ever gave me."

"That might just be because I have something unique to offer them."

He shakes his head, eyes unfocused.

"No. I saw the human worlds you visited. So much… Life. Even the labourers were treated better."

"Those weren't Hive Worlds. Comparing the two doesn't work. Yes, the tau will make improvements, but it won't be anything like as radical-."

"Why?" His head comes up and focuses fully on me. "Why do xenos care more for our suffering than our masters?"

"Because people respond better to being treated well. In the Imperium, they can rely on cultural indoctrination to keep everyone working hard. The tau have to be a bit more mercenary. 'See, look how much your life has improved, and you can keep worshipping the Emperor if you want'."

"Does he exist, or is that a lie too?"

"To the best of my knowledge, the Emperor exists. The Ecclesiarchy doesn't get him quite right, but he'd definitely hate me for giving up on humanity in favour of aliens."

"Then why do we suffer so?"

"Because it's easy and simple. He cares about humanity, but doesn't care at all for individual humans. If the output of your factory stayed good, he'd think it was fine. Improving your standard of living would cost extra resources without a corresponding payoff in output."

"Did the Inquisitor have his sanction?"

"He doesn't approve their appointment on an individual basis, and… The organisation came into being towards the end of the Heresy. I don't know whether he created it or not. But… The Emperor wouldn't have condemned you merely for drawing his eye, but he wouldn't have contradicted the Inquisitor either. Saving you wouldn't have been worth the time. But that time would have saved other lives."

"Why did my soul not go to him at the moment of my death?"

"I'm not sure how it works. I don't even know if that happens."

The daemon looks around.

"Is he here?"

"Ah… He has a presence in the warp, yes, but it's a long way from here. You'd have to follow the astronomicon to its source, and it's fairly well protected against things like you. It would be a long journey, and I doubt that other daemons would be glad to see you." I sigh. "I could take you there in the material universe, but we'd probably both die without seeing him."

I'm sure that they've closed Jaq Draco's tunnel by now.

"Look, I understand that you want to tear everyone responsible for your situation apart, but we're past the point where that's a rational course of action. The people taking over your world have tau engineers and physicians with them. It'll take a while, the Hives are very big places, but they're going to start improving things. The existing rulers… They're going to be removed, but I'm afraid that if you subjected them to a magic mind probe you'll learn that they aren't especially bad people. The system they were part of just gave them more than it gave you."

"Then who do I hurt?!"

"I wasn't trying to give you a target. Lashing out might be cathartic, but it doesn't usually help solving complex problems."

"What of the other Hives? Other worlds? I saw them in your mind. How I lived is common."

"My current plan is to help the tau conquer the galaxy, while at the same time improving them to the point where they can fix that problem. I can't promise that it's going to work, but I haven't been able to come up with anything better. If you want to help cast down incapable rulers, we'd be happy to work with you."

Happy may be overstating things, but for once the tau's relaxed attitude to daemons might actually come in handy.

"I mean… Apart from that, what do you want out of existence?"

6 563 937.M41

Bo'ohk stands two places away from me, his right hand on The Faultless One's left arm. Before us, a Primaris Psyker checks the latest of the thousands of victims of the latest Inquisitorial purge for the taint of chaos. With each shaken head, a body is taken before the planet's senior Ecclesiarchy clergy to perform the funerary consecration before they're taken to the cathedral for burial, their clerical robes increasingly stained with blood and soot.

"It's a start."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th January 2013
10:21 GMT

I sigh as the last few Reach ships metaphorically strike their colours. They know perfectly well that they can't get away before they're overhauled, not in a situation like this. The commanding L.E.G.I.O.N. admiral sends me a request for confirmation and I approve their plan without a moment's hesitation.

The Reach offensive is -currently- under control. Not beaten, no, but we were successful in defending most of our worlds and all of the worlds that actually have a meaningful industrial output.

I take a moment to look at the drifting hulks of the L.E.G.I.O.N. vessels that were destroyed in this engagement. Not a single orange glow in any of them.

Our ships do have escape pods, but there's no understanding that escape pods won't get shot at in this war. It's actually safer for naval personnel on crippled ships to deactivate available devices drawing power and shelter in place. While the fight is still going on it just isn't worth the Reach shooting at ships that aren't participating in it. Launching pods is something that only makes sense to do once the people on board get an all-clear signal or if there are boarders.

If the L.E.G.I.O.N. fleet were on the losing side, most personnel not in a position to get away will kill themselves to avoid capture, knowing full well that if they don't they'll be mind controlled and sent back to act against their own people. Reach ships have escape pods, but they're more like mini-ships and are far better at escaping to the rear of their formations under their own power. Somewhat aided by the fact that we don't shoot them even if it would be really easy, like now.

"Illustres to Orange Lanterns. Highest priority is to make safe damaged ships. Don't get distracted by pick-up duty until all survivors are safe. Once that's done, request new orders."

They don't all hop to it, of course. They are Orange Lanterns, and some of them prioritise friends or allies above what's actually sensible in the fight. Or taking trophies from foes they personally bested. I can't stop them without either significant retraining or dominating them.

But…

We reach out to their desires and faintly cause them to resonate with one another. A little groupthink to counter our pernicious individualism.

My ring blinks again.

"Illustres here."

Dox's head appears over my ring.

"Is it done?"

"That part of the Reach fleet that didn't fall back has been destroyed. We're in the recovery phase now. Do you have a new assignment for me?"

"Darkstar Jade Nguyen's infiltration mission has been terminated prematurely."

There's a slight pause. I don't think that he's telling me that she's dead, if only because he wouldn't prevaricate.

"She had only minor injuries, but she and Lantern Zartok's team managed to capture one of Grayven's henchmen, along with the command centre of a Citizenry ship."

"Are we changing our focus, Clarissi?"

"No, but it is my intent to pay a little more attention to Grayven's activities. He has ignored your offers for an alliance and I have no doubt that he will attack us should we appear to be gaining a decisive advantage. At the moment we are no more able to counter fleets transported by boom tube than the Reach is."

I nod. "Alright, what do you need from me?"

"Humans display reduced performance quality when active for long periods of time without rest. While your status as an enlightened Lantern insulates you from some of the causes, I am moving you off duty for the time being."

"Appreciated. Any news on Earth?"

"All N.E.M.O. assets have been instructed to avoid the place. Darkstar Nguyen's prisoner might be able to provide you with information regarding the Anti-Life, but I encourage you to actually take time to refresh yourself."

"Certainly, sir. Anything else?"

"No, that's all."

His head vanishes.

Okay. Off-duty. And

Jade is… There.

I check my location… The N.E.M.O. facility on Tillettit. Zartok spots me at once, a material spear in his hands. Allyn is watching… No, refereeing Jade's fight with… Is that Knockout? While Grood is just sort of sitting in the corner. He's not eating, which is a little uncharacteristic of him.

"Illustres." Zartok moves through his spear katas, without using his ring. I'm no expert in spear combat, but it looks like he knows what he's doing. "What is it?"

I walk a little closer to the sparring arena, watching as Jade dodges around Knockout's punches with her exo-mantle's flight system.

"I understand that you were successful."

"You could call it that."

"You disagree?"

"There's a Darkstar stealth ship in Reach space that will have to leave now that we're no longer on board. We were barely able to defeat two Scarab Warriors, I was forced to damage parts of the ship's control system that will make it near-impossible to fully reverse engineer, and worst of all Grayven decided to hand us victory."

"Did you talk him into it?"

"No. He said that Knockout was his father's spy, and that he arranged the entire affair to get rid of her. He assumed that it would be the Reach, but us having her was more convenient."

Ah. Hammer blows to his pride, then.

"Illustres?" Allyn turns away from the fight to look at me. "Could you please take over here? I have a prior engagement."

A glowing orange shield superimposes itself on the one he's making for a moment, then I absorb his construct.

"Dismissed, Lantern Allyn."

He smiles, nods, and then flies back towards the main compound.

I feel Jade's attention pass over me for a moment as she manoeuvres for space. Knockout looks like she's bracing for something, but Jade's posture relaxes and she raises her right hand to stop-.
Fight Better!
Knockout lunges across the arena as my barrier turns into a giant draconic fist, grabbing her and crushing her before spinning her around hard enough to turn a normal human into a bag of broken bones and shredded organs before slamming her into the toughened ground hard enough to crater it once, twice and thrice.

Knockout groans as I release the construct.

"Hey Jade. How did it go?"

"I submitted a mission report." She takes out her purple ray. "Do I need to use this?"

"On Knockout?" I walk over to Knockout and kick her. "No. She's Apokoliptian. You dead, Knockout?"

"Nnnnno?"

"Good answer. Apokoliptians understand and like the language of brutal violence. But really, how are you doing?"

"I nearly died because Grayven sabotaged his own ship. Aside from that, good."

"Are you finished with Knockout for now?" She nods. "Knockout, up." She groans, but comes to her feet. "Let's drop her off in a holding cell and do a full debrief."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 563 938.M41

"I have…" Bo'ohk's nasal cleft is twitching spasmodically. "Concerns."

I take a moment to watch the recording of the Faultless One as he leads teams of gue'vesa medics and technicians through the factory complexes of the planet below us. The cameras following them are recording this more for propaganda purposes than anything else, but it's still a useful monitoring tool. The humans in the team aren't from the puppet world who are officially occupying this planet, but rather from a world that was t'auified a good deal longer ago. The people from there are considered far more politically reliable, to say nothing of being much better trained than their equivalents from most Imperial worlds.

"I suspected."

"What..? Is he?"

"Not sure."

"P'ol, I am going to have to explain this to the aun'ar'tol. Not the Lar'shi'aun'ar'tol, the T'au'aun'ar'tol. Aun'o'T'au'Acaya'Va'Denta himself will want to question me. This is not merely a matter of practicality. It affects everything about how the Tau Empire deals with these creatures. So, please; as much as I usually enjoy our banter, this is a time for absolute seriousness."

I nod. "Understood."

"That is a daemon."

"That depends on what definition of daemon we're using. So far as I can tell, he isn't related to the four greater Gods of Chaos."

"According to the records we have taken from the Imperium's daemon hunters, neither are the furies. They are still the enemy of the Greater Good."

"Y-."

"And can never be anything else. That is important. Tyranids can never be anything other than devourers. Orks… The orks are the reason why we have a list of species who cannot be a part of the Greater Good, and… Grem'len…"

Oh, hang on, he's… Blinking erratically, which combined with the nasal twitching-.

I step closer, firmly place my hands on his shoulders to lock him in place, then sharply exhale directly at his forehead. He shudders, eyes opening slightly wider for a moment. I stare directly into them, waiting for a sign that he's back with me.

"I… Thank you."

I nod, then pull him into a hug. Tau do hug, a gesture that has more or less the same meaning to them that it does to humans. The usual difference is that tau rest their foreheads against each other rather than putting them over the other person's shoulder.

"You alright?"

"Hah? No. But… This is the disadvantage of being the ethereal on the mission: you do not have anyone to turn to for counsel."

I pull back. "So…"

"The wisdom of Aun'Va is considerable, but-. But no one is flawless. Humans of the Imperium are often shocked by our lack of fear where the warp is concerned. Everything I have seen about the nature of the creatures that live there has led me to believe that they are right, and that we were right to say that nothing that comes from the warp is anything other than anathema. But I thought that of orks and Grem'len has been receptive to the concept. For the good of my… Soul, if I have one, I need you to explain this to me as best you can."

"I'm not sure. I thought that daemon princes of chaos undivided were a… Group project. They made offerings to the four, built up rewards from all of them, and at some point absorbed enough warp-stuff to fully transform. But…"

I link to the ship's computer and call up the file on eldar Avatars.

"That thing's a fragment of the eldar God of War, shattered when Kaela Mensha Khaine lost a fight with Slaanesh. Not allied to the Gods of Chaos. In fact it doesn't even spend significant time in the warp. If you destroy one, its spirit goes right back to its home craftworld."

I assume that it goes through the Warp when that happens… I've never heard of the process being interrupted. Logically, it… Should be possible for warp phenomena to interrupt it. The warp spiders would stop a daemon infiltrating the infinity circuit, but trapping a recently dematerialised Avatar sounds… Plausible.

"And then there's the Emperor."

"You said that he was created by human psykers killing themselves and merging their minds together."

"Right. A synthetic god. Not tied to Chaos. Because while-. The strongest and most universal emotions create… Most creatures in the warp… The reason why there aren't 'kindness daemons' despite the capacity for kindness being just as universal as bloodlust is because they'd get eaten. The most powerful warp currents just tear things like that apart. So the Emperor can exist because from the first moment of his existence he was strong enough to look after himself, and had an anchor in the materium. Kaela Mensha Khaine didn't… Merge with Khorne because… I don't know, because the eldar are so psychic that they could prevent it? Because their particular attitude to violence was different enough? I don't know. But it is."

Bo'ohk nods. "There are records of orks being aided by manifestations of their gods also."

I shake my head. "That's just weirdboyz manifesting things with waaagh energy. As far as I know, Mork and Gork aren't directly involved. Other… I guess the Legion of the Damned would be similar, but we don't have good records on them. The point is, warp-native beings can exist who aren't.. exclusively hostile, they're just… Really unusual. And that will be part of their nature. No daemon of Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh or Tzeentch would act like this in a genuine way."

"So why does this one behave in this way? He has been close to many psykers, and they have not reacted in the usual manner. Is he, then, different enough from daemons that we should consider him something else?"

"I watched him absorb… Souls. But he wasn't eating them for their power. He made them his skin, adding them to himself. All… Human, so… The warp stuff was… Filtered? By human nature and human perceptions."

"Like the Emperor."

"No, the Emperor's components were psykers in their own right, and he had a material body. But… More like that. And their emotions… Resignation, suffering, betrayal by what they served… On a planet where those feelings were normal. It probably.. alters the local warp.. reflection. What I saw… Machines made of people. Because… That's sort of what it is."

"You said that daemons are fragments of the greater warp powers."

"Most are. Sort of. But 'daemon' isn't a purely descriptive term. The Imperium calls Avatars 'daemons', and they're different to most of the things that get called daemons." I point to the video as the factory machines are shut down and emergency field medicine is carried out on the scalded work force. "We won't actually know what he 'counts as' until we bring a holy relic into close proximity and see what happens. And even then, that might just be the Emperor's opinion rather than a statement about his nature."

Bo'ohk nods slowly. "Can we trust him?"

"I don't think-. He didn't seem particularly deceitful. He wants to help brutalised humans everywhere, and… Goodness knows there are a lot of those around the place. He has no loyalty to the Greater Good and I doubt that he ever will." I shrug. "But if we have him keep doing things like this, there shouldn't be a problem."

I take a breath.

"And then, there are the study opportunities. And the possibility that we can have him shield human psykers from other warp-entities, though we'd have to study him a lot. And he'd probably have to learn from scratch."

"What about human theology?"

"The Ecclesiarchy's faith doesn't have theological space for things like him. So we can't use him as a figurehead without provoking a crusade-. A bigger crusade, as they assume that the Tau Empire has fallen to Chaos. We should probably record his unusual appearance as being due to archeotech armour on.. databases we think that the Imperium can access. So… What's next?"

"We work to incorporate this world into the Tau Empire. And then, we journey to T'au to explain ourselves."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 563 941.M41

"So what's aw this abawt, then?"

Gremlin reaches up with his right hand to scratch his right ear, his eye ridges raised in my direction.

Orkoids don't have eyebrows, or any other body hair. Other than a couple of days where I got him a hair squig and he had a lot of fun trying a bright pink rat tail and top knot. And their facial expression comes more from their mouth than their relatively small foreheads. He had to learn that gesture by watching me.

"Gremlin, you know more about the way tau politics works than I do."

"That ain't what I mean, boss. You bin flyin' around an' doin' stuff for the tau for years. They fawt you was a daemon when they met you."

"So..?"

"So what changed? Why's they treatin' Faultless Boy different?" He taps his right forenail on the table. "Can't be 'cos he's a daemon."

"I think it's more that they now know enough to be scared."

"So why's they invitin' awl a' us who bin spendin' time with him to T'au? That'd be a ded stoopid thing t' do if he was go'na make trouble, innit?"

"I said they knew better. I didn't say they knew everything. Honestly, it's unlikely that it's actually going to reach Aun'va."

"But takin' a fing off'f the dekkodakka list-."

"The what?"

"You know. They can't be part a' the Greater Good, so shoot 'em when you see 'em. Dekko, dakka."

I smile. "Well, then it would be the dekko dakka directory, wouldn't it?"

He visibly thinks for a moment. "Kritikul enkawnta krumpin kompendium."

I shake my head. "The 'en' sound is too heavy."

He grins. "Konkurrence?"

"Um… Ah…" I grin back. "Maybe?"

"Think aw'll tell awll a' the orks I meet, 'bawt how the bugboyz rank higher 'an us on that. Should deawl with that whole problem."

"Might be a bit 'high concept' for most warbosses."

"'The blueboyz think the bugboyz 're harder 'an you'. I think they'd get it."

I shrug. He's probably right, though I think they'd probably attack the tau for the insult rather than the tyranids. Orks are more attackers of opportunity than planners.

"But anyways, Undyin' Spirit's the one who decides who goes on an' off, yeh?"

"As I understand it, he makes the final determination. But he's the head of a council of very senior and very well informed people. I doubt that it's going to purely be him." I frown. "Are you worried?"

"Bit, yeah. I'm on the list, too."

"You mean the kompendium?"

He doesn't look amused any longer. "No. I don't."

I nod, and insert trivial small talk into the monitoring systems.

"Sorry. Look… I… I'm working for the Tau Empire because I think they're the closest thing this era has to a civilisation that I want to be part of. That doesn't mean that I'm not aware that they don't always make the best decisions. If they rule against you, then I'll get you out and drop you off somewhere."

His ears flick as he stares at me contemplatively.

"Really?"

"Yes. You're my friend. You haven't done anything contrary to the interests to the Greater Good, and you've joined in our work enthusiastically. If they can't see that, they're the ones mistaken."

"Oh. Thanks, boss. Course, that… Does leave the question 'how'?"

"If they were going to kill you, then they'd just order Kais's team to sneak up on you in their stealth suits. So they either do actually want to talk to you themselves, or they're going to make a big show of it."

"An' if-."

"If they're going to make a show of it, then I guess I'm working for Farsight now. Ah, though I'd… Probably drop you off somewhere else. Otherwise… The tau can be pleasantly surprising in their rationality a lot of the time. Give them a chance."

"Yeah." He nods. "Alwite. So, same with Faultless Boy?"

"T'au has a much bigger population than Lar'shi. More high level experts. It's not like they've had the opportunity to examine a cooperative daemon before. In his case… He can't exactly die, he'd just get banished. But you know what tau are like with the warp; they'd probably just put him in a research institution somewhere isolated. I'm more worried about what he'll want. Or that they'll-."

"Try feedin' him souls like the Emprah?"

"It's something I want to be very clear about being impossible. We'd need a golden throne for a start, and we don't have one."

"Think I can back you up there, boss. Tau and sorcery don't sound like things that should mix."

"Thank you."

"Here, listen…" Orkoids can't really look awkward, either, but he's giving it a go. "Orks don't have families. Got mates, some of them, but a yoof just gets grabbed by whateva mob's abawt and hit ovah the head 'til he does what he's tole. You… Took a little snotling, an'… Made me. Tort me. Like I'm someone with something to contribute. Valuable, an' a person an' that. An' we fight togevah and.. learn stuff togevah, and… I guess what I'm tryin' ta' say, is…"

He looks directly at me, his face relaxing.

"When is you gunna make an honest woman outa Tsua'm Raard?"

"Um, what? That's not where I-. You've been talking to Bo'ohk about human humour, haven't you?"

"Bit. I do like that you've put a lotta effort inta me, I just don't have the brain gubbins to think of you as a father or anything like that. No offence."

I nod. "None taken. So what makes you think-?"

"Come on, boss. You explainin' the plot of every human story where humans an' aliens pair off, an' the underlying psychological mechanism for why a human would do it, was a ded giveaway. An' how you keep remindin' her how you like tau better than humans. An' how you deliberately don't tell her what you actually want 'cos of her orders."

"You said something to her after I spoke to that genestealer cultist."

"She wasn't gettin' it. I just sed somethin' abawt the eldar they've got locked in there."

Dark Eldar don't last long in captivity, even in a null zone. We're still not really clear why. Slaanesh shouldn't be able to drain them when they're cut off from the warp, but I suppose that means that they can't sustain their bodies with warp energy either. Tau… Tend to leave Exodite worlds in their space alone these days, and I actually got to be present during a diplomatic meeting with officials from a Craftworld passing through the Empire, which… Went about as well as it could have done.

"I find eldar fairly unattractive, actually. In terms of personality-."

"But now she's thinkin' abawt you an' aliens like somethin' that could actually happen."

"Thank you for your wingmanning efforts. I'll remember it if we ever run into Uthan the Perverse. They're into orks."

He looks sceptical for a moment, then realises that I'm not joking. "Should be interestin'."

"Please tell me if Tsua'm actually says anything to you."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6 564 941.M41

"…usually serve as technicians and overseers, rather than as labourers."

I watch through the doorway as Tsua'm takes the Faultless One though a slideshow depicting a tau industrial complex doing the same sort of work as he was doing back on his homeworld. He appears to be engrossed, but his responses aren't exactly human any more so it's a little hard to tell. Certainly, the tau industrial drones and protective equipment are…

I was going to think 'centuries ahead', but that's wrong. It's literally the opposite. Tau factories are a couple of centuries ahead of what my era could do. The Imperium is far ahead of them, but… Doesn't bother.

"This drastically reduces the number of worker-decs required for the same output, reduces the rate of worker injuries and allows for far more mentally stimulating work."

Tsua'm is smiling, and it's a much better smile than the one she used to have before she met me. More subdued, less axe murdering meth-head. Faultless One isn't looking at her, though. His attention is completely absorbed by the hologram of the working factory.

She's not showing him the accommodation, which is Spartan to say the least. And she's not showing him the recreation facilities, which exist but have almost no variety. Not good, just better. Honestly, I think she should show him. What he's seeing is probably incomprehensible to him, whereas a slightly larger dormitory with better hygiene standards is something he could relate to.

"I see only tau."

"There are factories like this on human worlds within the Empire, but human populations often don't have the education required to operate factories like this. It's really only the low-density worlds that have been fully acculturated."

"What do you mean by 'low density'?"

"Hive Worlds can have between five billion people and fifteen billion people per hive city, and the larger Hive Worlds can have many hive cities. A low density world would have a population of less than half a billion, or the equivalent if the habitable area is unusually small. This allows the rapid dissemination of educational materials to the entire population and the assurance of cultural unity."

"What happens to the rest?"

"The rest-?" Tsua'm blinks, her facial cleft twitching. "Oh, no, no! We don't kill the population down to that level! That would be terribly wasteful! Many humans worlds do not have population levels as high as the Hive Worlds, while in other places human populations are relocated from high density worlds."

I spent some time checking that the official version of Tau Empire resettlement policy was accurate, and… She isn't talking about the worlds where they settled Imperial prisoners, or the colony experiment where they took children between the ages of five and eight and raised them tau-style. That was actually a success, and the children involved were volunteered by their families in the hope that they'd have a better future which they do have, so as uncomfortable as it made me...

Of course, that's not really practical for everyone in a Hive City, even ignoring the massive drop in output it would cause. But the tau do improve the factories they oversee, and this is their aspiration for everyone.

"Tsua'm, why don't you show him one of the human worlds?" She gives me an interrogative look. "Even if it's not as nice as that, it'll give him a better idea of how humans live. We can even take him to one once the T'au'aun'ar'tol are finished with us."

"Yes. I want to see with my own eyes."

"Then unless they have new orders for us, that is where we will go. Faultless One, the system here is configured to respond to your voice commands. You can simply tell it what you want to learn, and it will display it for you."

He turns his head slightly to give her a sidelong glance. "What am I not permitted to know?"

"A few things regarding military deployments and the construction processes for certain weapons. And obviously we cannot tell you anything that we do not know. Otherwise, this is the same database that I use when I work."

Though I imagine that the search algorithm has been somewhat slanted.

"Then I will watch and learn."

Tsua'm gives him a shallow bow, but he's not watching her. He's walking closer to the hologram, staring at the drone production line as it turns the metal into standardised ingots. She looks pleased at his attentiveness as she walks towards me, and I step back to allow her to leave the room.

"Seems to be going well."

"He is single-minded. And quite different to the recordings of other daemons that I have watched."

I nod. "Those were mostly battlefield recordings, weren't they?"

"Do you think that has given me an incomplete view of their kind?"

"Yes, but not in a positive way. All the daemons I've ever heard of have been evil, it's just that not all of them are combat-focused."

"Then is the Faultless One something outside of your experience?"

"Yes. Honestly, I think that he might be more similar to the Emperor than any daemon."

She nods. "Because he was created by merging together many human souls, and not from a reflection in the warp or through the aid of a dark god. Does such a thing have precedence?"

"The closest I can think of would be the Screaming Cage, but the Sisters of Battle used to make that empowered one of their number, they didn't merge with her. And she was still alive. And it was deliberately created by a daemon, rather than being created by accident."

"So not much like him at all?"

My eyes flick her way, and I see that she's smiling. I smile back.

"It's the closest I can think of. It's a shame we don't have any real experts to study him."

"We will see what can be arranged. There are species within the Empire with warp knowledge we can draw upon."

"What, the kroot? I don't think a shaman who ate a few psykers is going to be much help. And the demiurg aren't going to let a Living Ancestor anywhere near him."

"Those are not the only possibilities. There are species who are not part of the Empire's public face who have more knowledge than we tau do."

Yeah, and there's a reason why they're not part of the Empire's public face. Some species have such a different way of thinking about the universe, such a different physical make-up, that trying to find a place for them to integrate into the Empire doesn't really work. At best, there's something they can do and the Empire just lets them do that.

I shrug and nod.

"That isn't a gesture that I can easily understand." She looks at me… Tau-puzzled. "The nod is agreement and the shrug is uncertainty or indifference. Together… You are willing to go along with the idea despite not being convinced?"

I nod. "More or less. I mean, the whole point of this is that no one knows what to do and we're just trying to make well-reasoned guesses."

She nods, then there's a ripple in her nasal cleft that I don't recognise. "On that subject, perhaps now is a good time to openly discuss your romantic interest in me."

"Um."

"I am not a drone, P'ol. I am an expert in xenosociology; after your reaction to the concubines I realised that you had specific views on how such things should be done. And I realised that that definitely does not involve compulsion or expectation, and that you would not demand intimacy from me. You could -and should- have spoken to me directly."

"Oh. Okay, yes, I just… Wasn't sure, and I think having a bunch of fanatics around reminded me that some tau can get a bit… Fanatical, about their orders, too. The fact that you're generally not like that is… One of the things that draws me to you."

"And you did not want to risk that trait by putting me in a difficult position." I nod. "Thank you."

She raises her right hand to my forehead, and flicks me. Or… Tries. Tau are pretty bad at quick precise movements and she more or less just pokes me with her knuckle. But I appreciate the effort.

I smile. "So..?"

"So I wish to hear all of your ideas about how such a relationship could work."

"Oh?" I smile. That's a pretty reasonable-.

She prods me with her knuckle again and then continues down the corridor.

"For professional reasons."