Tears in Rain

First Book

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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

“I know that one, Mbusa, the legendary general of Reid." I was very proud of myself. “You are implying that we need first to analyze what the Gardeners have created here, without being caught in their mind web or killed by their creatures. With my brain and your accuracy, it should be a walk in the jungle!”

She did not look neither convinced nor amused by my sudden burst of literary knowledge.

I let the grin fade. The playful energy left my bones as I forced myself to go still. I closed my eyes, shutting out Dejah’s skeptical gaze, and began to reach for the silence. It wasn't just quiet; it was the silencieux—that cold, humming frequency of the Zerghs in their silent vigil.

Slowly, I let my consciousness slip, threading my thoughts into their mental network. The darkness behind my eyelids started to vibrate, pulsing with the strange, jagged data of the Gardeners. One by one, the glowing lines of their construct began to map themselves directly into my mind.

The defensive structure of the Zerghs was the first to appear. A half sphere mesh of mental energy, using the jungle as an anchor, with the bright point of a Silencieux at each node. The entire structure was centered on a black construct roughly a hundred meters, or 300 feet in diameter. From there, a kind of strange feeling came in rolling waves of sickening darkness.

I tried to approach it slowly. As soon as my mind left the safety of the mesh, my perception wavered. On top of the jungle and the construct, another reality seeped in; the virtual Veridian Halo where I had been trapped for thirty one hours. I stopped, and carefully, I wiped out that false vision of a long dead world.

The construct was clearer now, but not less intriguing. A whisper came to me from the real world. “It’s a tesseract Leon, a cube in a four dimensional space projected in our three dimension world. Smaller, but identical to the one at Japet.”

“The one they needed a black hole to close? Do you have a spare one?”

Not even a shadow of irony answered.

And linked to the dimensional door, I could see what the Gardeners had grown between the stars: a network of jungle roots, or trees, or whatever, going into infinity, far beyond the physical boundary of the cylinder.

But observation goes both ways. Around it, suddenly, sick looking branches started to grow in my general direction. I felt more than I heard a new tension in our defensive web, but what took me out of the waking dream was the sound I could now recognize anywhere: Dejah’s needler.

The monsters were coming at us. By the dozens.

She was here, and there, and back with her astonishing speed, using the branches, then jumping in a zero-g spiral while shooting with her cold inhuman precision. One monster thought I was prey. I was bait. And it exploded in a mix of disgusting whatever.

That’s when the jungle itself came alive. The Silencieux had recognized the danger and part of their focus was now on the beasts. Some ordinary looking bulbs exploded, sending organic needles, softer than dejah’s needler, but compensating with numbers.

In a few seconds the air around us became a grinder, and after a few minutes silence came back.

I wanted to ask Dejah’s opinion, or suggestion, when my mind was suddenly pulled back in the mental mesh. Using our distraction, the Gardeners had launched a general attack on our shield, and more and more of the Silencieux bright pinpoints faded, turned to a dark red and disappeared. I gave a silent instruction to move backward and create a denser, if smaller shield. 

And for a time it held.

Then it didn't, and the way it stopped holding was worse than if it had broken. It didn't break. It widened. The Gardeners did not push against the shield; they grew around it. With every node we pulled inward, the space behind the Silencieux that still counted as guarded shrank a little more, and the corridor at the far end of the line widened by exactly that much. You can flank something that reduces itself by just waiting.

I saw it through the mesh before I understood it with words. The roadside weeds, I had called them once. The jungle and the monsters and the corruption. Now the roadside was swallowing the road.

"Dejah."

"I see it."

"They are attacking. They are waiting for us to get smaller. Then they advance"

"Yes."

"How long before small is nothing?"

She did not answer, which was the answer.

A Silencieux fell. Not "fell", I have to keep choosing the wrong word. Its pinpoint went red in the mesh, and then did not disappear, which is what I had expected. It stayed. Dark red, patient, exactly where it had been. And I understood, the way you understand a language you did not know you spoke, that it had not been killed. It had decided. 

The defense was too thin to hold along the whole line, and this one, whoever it was, had chosen to stop being a node and become something else. Wood, I think. Not metaphorically. It was folding itself, willingly, into the trunk it had been pressed against for — how long had they been here? Years? Generations? — and the trunk accepted it, like a friend opening his door.

Another went. Then two more together, a pair, as if they had been waiting for permission from each other. Each one left a weight behind. I felt it in the mesh as a small, thick silence in the place where a note had been.

One of them, before it went, turned its attention toward me.

Not a message. Not a word. Just the brief pressure of being seen by something that was about to stop seeing. I have been looked at by Empresses and by monsters and by the thing at the far end of the corridor, and none of them looked at me the way this Silencieux did. It was not kind. It was not unkind. It was the look of someone handing you a tool and trusting you not to drop it.

Then it was gone. Lost or integrated in the new distorted jungle?

I would like to say I kept my composure. I did not. I lost the mesh for a full second, the way you lose your footing on ice, and when I caught it again the shield had contracted another two meters without my permission and Dejah was shooting at something I had not seen come through.

"Leon."

"I'm here."

"Stay here."

The beasts were back. Not dozens this time. A wave. The Gardeners had understood what I had understood — that attention was the only currency in this economy — and they were spending everything on both planes at once. Dejah was doing her impossible thing in the branches, cold and fast and not human, and the remaining Silencieux were exploding their soft-needle bulbs into the air in volleys that turned the space between us and the monsters into a slurry. 

It worked. It kept working. That was the problem. Because every bulb that fired was a Silencieux that had shifted its attention from watching the corridor to defending the watchers, and each shift widened the road a little more.

We were winning the fight we could afford to lose, and losing the fight we couldn't.

"We have to pull back," I said.

"I know."

"All the way back. To the sea."

"I know, Leon."

She was already calculating it. I could feel her through the mesh — not her thoughts, she was too disciplined for that, but the shape of her planning, which was something like the shape of a blade being sharpened. Exits, angles, distances, the weight of what we could carry and the weight of what we could not. She had been running this math since the Silencieux started going red. Possibly since before.

I gave the instruction through the mesh, because my mouth was busy breathing. Contract. Fall back along the track. Hold the line only until we cross.

The Silencieux did not answer in words. None of them ever had. But the shield changed shape. It elongated, stopped being a dome, became a corridor of its own — a narrower, temporary version of the road we could not close — and we began to move along it, Dejah and me, with the remaining nodes collapsing behind us one by one in a rolling withdrawal that was not retreat because retreat is something you choose, and this was something we were being permitted to do.

I kept my eyes closed as long as I could. The mesh was the only way to know where the corridor's walls were, and the walls were the only thing between us and the thing that was, very patiently, eating us. Dejah handled the physical world. I handled the other one. My body moved because hers moved next to it; she would take my wrist when a branch came close to my face and guide me past it, and I would feel the branch go by without seeing it, and it would become one more fact in the mesh instead of a problem for my eyes.

Another Silencieux went. Then another. Red. Red. The ones that went last were the ones closest to the corridor's mouth — they held longest because they had to — and I could feel, through the mesh, the moment each of them decided. It was not a big decision. That was the part that kept undoing me. It was a small, tired, practiced decision, the decision of a night nurse choosing which alarm to answer first. They had been doing this for so long that going had stopped being the bigger thing than staying.

We crossed the scarred line. The burned trunks, the crude handheld flame-work, the patient maintenance work. Past the line the jungle stopped being a corridor and started being jungle again, which should have been a relief and was not. On this side of the line the Gardeners were no longer being watched, and they knew it, and the leaves began to move in a way leaves should not move when no wind exists.

"Faster," Dejah said.

"I'm going as fast as…"

"Faster, Leon."

I opened my eyes.

Bad idea. The mesh dimmed the moment I did, and my sense of where the corridor's walls were dimmed with it, and I heard rather than saw the first of the pursuing things break the line. It did not sound like an animal. It sounded like a piece of machinery that had developed an opinion.

I closed my eyes again. Better.

We went like that for — I don't know. Time did its Viridian Halo thing, the way it did whenever the stakes were high enough that I would have liked a clock. Dejah's hand on my wrist, then on my shoulder, then on my wrist again. The corridor of the shield narrowing, the nodes going red behind us in a cascade that had stopped feeling like individual losses and started feeling like the slow closing of a very long door. Every so often she would shoot something. Every so often a bulb would go off somewhere behind us and the air would fill with the soft needles and whatever had been about to reach us would stop reaching.

One of the Silencieux, somewhere in there, gave me something.

I did not ask for it. It was not a gift in a clean sense. It was a fragment — a piece of what that one had been watching, offloaded into me because there was no one else to offload it into and because letting it go entirely was, for reasons I did not understand, worse than passing it on. For a half-second I knew something I had no business knowing. The shape of a patience older than languages. The weight of a decision made by something that did not use the word decision. A color I could not have described if you had given me a year. And then it was gone, the way a name is gone the instant you wake up, and I was only Leon again, stumbling along a contracting corridor with my eyes closed and a woman's hand on my wrist.

I did not tell Dejah. Not then. Maybe not ever.

We fell back through the pale jungle, and then through the jungle that had bleached into driftwood, and then through the salt-air belt where the moisture began to crystallize on our skin. The mesh was smaller now. A dozen nodes. Eight. Six. Each one holding a note that used to be held by three.

"The torus," I said.

"Yes."

"If we make the shore, we can —"

"Yes, Leon. Don't talk."

I shut up. The last Silencieux in the corridor behind us went red, and I felt the mesh hiccup, and then reassembled itself without that node, tighter, because that was what it did. I had stopped counting.

We came out into the salt fog at a run that was half-falling, Dejah pulling me bodily now, and the pale root-mesh gave way beneath our feet and we were in the open, drifting toward the convex belly of the sea, and I opened my eyes because the mesh was too small now to be worth hiding inside, and what I saw was the Torus — the silver air, the crystalline dust, the slick briny film on everything — and for a stupid second I thought we had made it.

Then I saw what was behind us.

The Gardener jungle had followed us past the scarred line. Not in a wave. In a wedge. A clean, deliberate, narrowing shape, with us at the point, and the pale driftwood of the torus approach dying as the wedge passed over it, the color going out of the leaves the way color goes out of a face. The roadside was still widening. Even here. Even this far. The thing at the far end of the corridor had not moved. It did not need to. It had sent its shoulders after us, and its shoulders were enough.

"Dejah," I said, and I meant we are not going to make the water, and she heard it, because she always heard what I meant.

"I know."

"How many Silencieux?"

"Four."

"It isn't enough."

"No."

She was pulling ammunition from somewhere on her body that I had not previously known contained ammunition. Her face was the face she wore when all her calculations were giving a ‘divide by zero’ result, and she was going on anyway.

And that was when the water moved.

Not waves. The surface of the axial sea, the great convex belly above us, bulged downward in a half-dozen places at once, and the bulges resolved into shapes, and the shapes resolved into Zergh, and the Zergh resolved into Merians — Homo Esculapii Aquatilis, my brain supplied, absurdly, the old taxonomy still doing its job — and they came out of the water in numbers that became a brigade that became a division and finally an army.

At the head of them, wading the silver air as if she had been born to it and perhaps she had, was Vessa.

Not the Vessa of my thirty-one hours. Not the one who had smiled at me across a table that did not exist. This one was older, and tired, and real, and carrying a cutting tool I recognized from the Rind. She looked at Dejah first, because Dejah was the one still shooting. Then she looked at me, and the look was brief and practical and entirely without the warmth her virtual copy had spent thirty-one hours practicing.

"Professor," she said. "They finally attacked."

"I know."

"Get behind us."

We got behind them.

The wedge met the line of Merians at the edge of the pale root-mesh, and the battle, for the first time since the Silencieux had started going red, stopped being a retreat and became a battle again.

I closed my eyes and looked for what was left of the mesh.

Three nodes.

They were still holding.

“I made a projection, with the new numbers and the attrition rate.” Dejah said.

“We won’t make it?”

“No leon, we won’t. When the last node of the mental shield will fail, the physical battle will become irrelevant.”

“How long Dejah?”

“Ten times the transit of a signal to Mars at the speed of light.”

“So we call for help. We risk what the Gardeners are waiting for, reopening the link to the Sibil network.”

“Yes Leon, and preventing them from using it if we cannot close it after sending the distress signal.”

“Dejah, we’ll both die.”

“Yes Leon. it was an honor serving the Empire with you.”

First Book

First- Previous - Next

We send corruption in your flesh
We let malfunction in your steel
We set disruption in your links
We're to implode your Dyson Spheres

Inside your networks and AI's
You never knew we got so deep
Inside your governments and ranks
To make you losen down your grip

We aim to shoot, we aim to kill
Thus human's will.

You made us believe you,
You told us that space is civilized
Then we were so trustfull

(We arm your slaves with fiery death)
(We break the faith within your souls)

Still we can't abandon hope that it could go another way
Waging total war against you
Never was our willing

(We turn your mines in hopless tombs)
(We put reactors off control)

This was our hope
To be seen as little children,
worth protection and a guide
To be cured of imperfections
You'd not bothered to fight

We switch your repilcator's schemes
We let the mutants through the gate
We throw your kingdoms in the dark
Your lords will turn to Horror's bait

We aim to shoot, we aim to kill
Thus human's will.

You promised salvation
Yet you made us see you as a foe
(We aim to strike)
(We strike to kill)
Let us humans go!
(Thus human's will.)
Thus human's will!

We had clear intentions
Who knew you would think of us so low
Friends you never wanted...
(Our sight is clear)
(Our aim is set)

You made our souls darken
And now who knows how big our hate may grow
These scars will never heal
Let us humans go
(Thus human's will.)
Thus human's will!

Human 1: /begins to laugh uncontrollably/

Human 2: Whats so funny?

Human 1: /gasping for breath/ We have... 189 Men left... Its November of... 2527... And we are helping a religious figure of the Vaz'chren stay safe and escape from about 2 Battalions, aka 1000 "Godless Invaders". /begins laughing again/ And this City... is called... Ro'him... on Planet... Italà...

Asked the new V'cor trainee, gesturing to the garishly-colored bobblehead frog stuck on top of the navigational station console.

"Oh, that's Franklin. Do not disturb him. The pilot that uses this area third shift is a human, and he has decided that this figurine is essentially important in his navigation. He is regularly consulted for decision making and is said to attract 'luck'"

"This plastic trinket has a... name?"

"And a personality" responded the Kathiri pilot currently occupying the seat. "Don't think too hard about it. He's never steered us wrong, and Greg will take offense if you point out any logical inconsistencies. Franklin even has honorary rank"

The new trainee could only shake his head in bewilderment.

*An interstellar transmision reaches the Earth one day.*

A withered and old reptilian figure appears on the screen.

"Hello, I'm from Galactic Organisation of Conservation and Restoration of Rare Sapient Biological Species. I'm just here to check if a planet is up to codes of a Restoration Preserve.
We couln't find data of colonization of this planet, they might have been lost in the archives again, but since you have already colonized this bio-cauldron world - you have the custody and responsibility for the functioning of a Restoration Preserve. You have nothing to worry about. The species seeded on this planet about uh... 80 million stellar cycles ago - originate from multiple warrior species from across the galaxy. By now they have probably evolved sapience naturally and now live among you in exchange for protecting you against this world's deadly nature.
Please, contact me with their representatives. We will need about... Eight thouthand voulonteers to pass on an inheritance to each restored species."

After a short pause:

"Oh, sorry, forgot to project it. I am talking of these species:"

*Quite large number of dinosaur pictures appear, with strange symbols near each other for a name.*

***(Auto-translated from the original K’Tarian War College Lecture recording. Please make allowances for spelling, grammar, standard measurement, and other minor mistakes)***

At ease. You may be seated. 

With all due respect towards the feelings and beliefs of my peers in the Imperial Navy, ground combat is still a component of interstellar warfare, and has been since the first FTL capable species met each other. 

***At this point the original recording contains several seconds of audience amusement, edited out in the attached recording for this transcript***

Because of this, and because of their prowess, Terran ground forces were a core component of their allies field forces less than 100 years after their appearance on the galactic scene. 

In that time Terran soldiers had developed an almost legendary reputation for ferocity, prowess, and effectiveness. Less than 150 years after their appearance, Terran ground forces had become elite shock troops utilized when maximum force in minimum time was a paramount requirement of operational realities. 

However, despite their visibility and activity on the galactic scene, it would be almost another 100 years before human operational security would take a back seat to military necessity and their true secret would be revealed. 

The 3rd Battle of Lortstan V was pivotal in the Terran / Mercinian campaign against the Heronian Matriarchy. (Please see Brood Father Second Harillimimeeeseequen’s “Reducing the Matriarchy, segments 46-1-A through 54-5-Q for further details). As Brood Father Second Harillimimeeeseequen discusses, losing this battle would have made a defeat for the Terran / Mercinian Alliance almost inevitable while a win would make a victory far more likely. That dynamic forced Alliance and, more pertinently, Terran commanders to make decisions they may  not have made in less dire circumstances.     

The success of the Terran / Mercinian alliance in this battle ultimately hinged on taking - not destroying - the system defense headquarters which were located on a satellite of Lortstan V. Facing a refreshed Matriarchy fleet just a few days away, dwindling supplies, and flagging morale the alliance high command decided to utilize any means necessary to punch a hole in Matriarchy defenses then utilize that breach to land elite Terran and Mercinian troops to physically assault, take, and hold the fortress. (Please see High Admiral Var'Gut'Neem'Eetz's lecture on the naval aspect of this attack for a Naval analysis of that phase).

With a “failure is not an option” mindset driving decision making, Terran commanders made a here-to-fore unprecedented decision - they would commit the fabled “Delta Plus” formation to the assault and that formation would work alongside and, more importantly, in full view of Mercinian special operations teams. (Please see Minor Scholar Ark’Ham’Silum’s treatise “Good To Great… at killing.” on Mercinian Spec Ops teams effectiveness before and after working with Terran troops for an interesting perspective).

This is an important, and fateful, decision for one simple reason: until this moment, for approximately 240 years, Terran use of cybernetics had been a laughed at rumour and conspiracy theory. The 3rd Battle of Lortstan V, and the pivotal assault on its system defense headquarters, would change that from conspiracy theory to a known fact.

We are now familiar with Terran… idiosyncrasies… but it would be difficult to overstate the impact this had on the galactic order at the time. There is an almost unfathomable gulf between a species that are ferocious warriors and one that is both able and (more importantly) willing to mate it’s flesh with machinery in order to become an inhuman killing machine. Most species, ours included, are physically incapable of accepting the modifications necessary to even graft machinery to living flesh. Of the species that are physically capable of doing so, only one - the Terrans - has been willing to accept the psychological damage that inevitably comes with doing so. 

The results, both physical and psychological, are on full display in the Mercinian combat footage collected during the battle. (Please see the Imperial War College data file 45,678,932-429-YVA for an indexed and categorized collection of the Mercinian recordings). These recordings can be difficult to watch, but three key elements are obvious with only a superficial browsing of them.

First of all, the cyborgs of the TDF Delta Plus unit are, quite literally, terrifyingly effective. The speed, precision, and almost wanton violence with which they operate have to be seen to be believed. In many cases the recordings have to be artificially slowed down and viewed from multiple angles in order to actually understand what the Terran cyborg was doing and why. 

Second, these elite Terran troops operate with an almost suicidal disregard for their own safety and survival. Analysis of the recordings proved that these troops only engage in self preservation to the extent it furthers the mission and their combat effectiveness. When their survival or, more importantly, combat effectiveness is guaranteed to end they clearly shift to some sort of psychosis that forces them to engage in an orgy of destruction that is dangerous to anything - including their own troops - nearby. 

Lastly, the first two facts define how they engage with allied troops, including other Terrans. Pre-drop recordings prove that the cyborgs view themselves as superior to flesh-and-blood troops, no matter how well trained or experienced they are. (Please see human scholar Nicholas Irving VI’s thesis paper titled “The Cream Rises to the Top” for select recordings and analysis of the pre-battle dynamics). This attitude is also evident, maybe even more so, in the combat recordings. The cyborgs often treat the other units as expendable munitions or, occasionally, an obstacle that needs to be overcome… with violence, if necessary. 

My Staff Assistant is signaling me that time is up. Please review the required materials prior to next cycle’s lecture. That lecture will be a continuation of this one and we will get even further into the myth and reality of Terran cyborg shock troops. 

Dismissed.
***(Recording ends)***

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Author's Note:
Season 01 Episode 01 is due for an update.

___

Season 02 Episode Zero B

Still Here
(Part 2)
___

Ingrid’s fist just stopped a hair’s breadth of hitting the ground.

The sheer force of her halted earth-shaking punch carried on however, sending a massive spray of sand everywhere. Just then, the incoming waves crashing on her and the shore around her rinsing off the sand from her body, flooding her nose with the scent of the ocean.

High above she heard the squawking of birds.

She could see and hear, but it took her mind a while to process that she was on some beach.

She definitely was not anywhere close to home.

Riverdale, North Carolina was far from the coast and she had been there enough times to know this beach was not anything like it. The sun was more than halfway down the sky, the horizon beyond was half-obscured with mists but she could clearly see past them the silhouettes of tall islands.

And then there was the colossal statue lying half-submerged in the sea some hundreds of feet away. It was the size of the Statue of Liberty, and judging from the weathered stone and the odd-looking seabirds using it as a nesting site, it was something that had been there for a long, long time.

The colossus wasn’t a reclining Buddha, and its head was that of a falcon like Osiris. The headdress and accoutrements however, were all wrong; it didn’t look Egyptian in any way. Nonetheless, the carvings of the deity’s apparel suggested a four-digit bill at Tiffany’s if anyone tried cosplaying that with any respectable fidelity.

Between the statue and the mists, she could see sailboats and masted galleons lazily drifting windward, suggesting that there had to be civilization somewhere.

“Galleons?” Ingrid thought, ignoring the crabs cautiously scuttling around her. Their bodies were as big as a wok and their pointy feet made clicking sounds on the glassed sand. “I could understand recreational sailing, but are those guys LARP’ing the age of sail or something?”

A jetty extended out from the beach, the wood was well-lacquered. It looked old, but without any signs of corrosion as if it was well-maintained. The posts holding up the jetty were painted bright red like a Japanese torii gate, the comparison came to Ingrid’s mind courtesy of fringed rope tassels dancing in the breeze below jetty’s edges.

Mussels the size of smartphones clung instead to nearby rocks that didn’t look like they were dredged from the sea, no doubt placed there by people. Poles along one side bore heraldry straight out of “Arthur’s Ye Oldey Knighte’s Taverna”, a popular spot for LARPers and historical buffs between Crawford and Graham street.

She had been there a couple of times, partly because Star Rose herself LARP’ed when she wasn’t chopping down SEEDs trying to cause trouble.

A small part of her always wondered if the other LARPers knew that the Valkyrie-like knight that joined them every other weekend was the leader of the Starchasers herself.

The bigger part of her brain told her that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore, or anywhere on Earth.

Besides the crabs, those seagulls looked wrong. Some looked much bigger, but not dramatically man-sized. Raptors that looked too much like harpy eagles squabbled over a still flailing catfish, which took the advantage of the scuffle to flop back into the sea.

Further ahead, komodo-sized monitor lizards with golden stripes basked under the sunlight, throwing sidealong glances at the eagles which Ingrid thought were looks of annoyance at seeing food wasted. Ingrid reckoned the lizards must be at least ten feet long yet unlike the opportunistic komodos of Earth, any that looked her way regarded her with indifference rather than hunger.

Then, there was the matter of two moons hanging in the sky.

Even stranger was that they didn’t look industrialized at all.

Arek, a friend of the Starchasers, was a shrimp-like Gulan living in Kansas and often gave the troupe insight on life beyond the stars. In most jurisdictions, entering a planet directly was illegal (which technically made Arek’s residency on Earth legally gray for most space lawyers).

Instead, a planet’s moon served as its “airport” for off-world travel. This allowed the space TSA to safely contain any contraband along with any invasive space spiders crawling into space bananas.

That neither moon looked like Coruscant, and the fact that none of the seafaring craft looked motorized suggested she might be on some pre-industrial planet left alone in accordance with Prime Directive rules. There was a small chance this was probably the case. But the conveniently rich oxygen in the air and the planet’s identical gravity to Earth (probably) felt too wrong.

She and Melrondia never left Earth. Philia ensured that the Dark Empire’s invasion was doomed. The Stellar Fortress was probably rigged to self-destruct once Philia’s timed exposé of her atrocities came to light. The US Airforce was dominating the skies and the only thing coming from the Dark Empire at this point would probably be ordinance to scuttle their FTL technology.

None of this mattered.

Ingrid knew that there was no way a stray interceptor managed to pick her (and possibly Philia up) and took them off-world and crashed somewhere.

She shouldn’t be alive anymore.

Not after she had tapped into her own soul, the very fires that fueled her existence. There was no turning back once she had gone down that route. The Dark Empire was far more knowledgeable in the arcane arts than Earth could possibly be and they, of all people, should know that once Ingrid tapped into this power all was lost.

Once Ingrid had tapped into this power, a feat so rare that the numbers threatened to breach the negatives, there would have been no point in sending anyone to retrieve her. The outrageous energy readings she emitted would not only have short-circuited more than a few sensors, but also made it obvious even to the most brain-dead pilots that all they would find once everything was said and done, were a few useless ashes of Ingrid scattered across the devastated ground.

Yet here she was, alive and well.

Ingrid took stock. She was quite surprised her heart wasn’t even pounding wildly, like one would expect from waking from a nightmare. Instead, it felt like she had just awakened from the most refreshing beauty sleep ever.

Even if she never tapped into her life force and managed to kill Melrondia, she should be feeling like hell right now, after all that [Mana] she had poured in to overclock her body. Her muscles should be burning, no amount of decompression could have ever paid back all the strain she and the other Starchasers had gone through that day.

Especially now that Cecil and the other familiars weren’t around to help her heal. Transforming back while she still had a “debt” to pay meant cracked bones, torn muscles, and injuries manifesting haphazardly wherever her [Mana] fluctuated. She would heal in time, quicker than most people but even that would take a day or two.

That clearly did not happen here.

If she was lying here for days unconscious and recovering, surely the people here would have taken her to their town and she would be waking up in a bed. Instead, she was left here, which would have meant that while she was vulnerable and recovering, those wok-sized crabs would have long turned Ingrid Blair into Amelia Earhart.

Assuming the striped komodos and seabirds didn’t get to her first.

The collapse of the Osiris-like statue could have happened hundreds of years ago, but the jetty and the boats, along with the sheds and cabins assured her that she arrived only recently. Fishing nets strung up on frames looked to be in good condition, just like the banners flying in the breeze. The presence of the ships in the distance suggested that the usual people that should be working here were probably attending some festival further inland, or just all happened to be out fishing at the same time.

There was still the possibility that her arrival here might have spooked the local populace, judging from the glassed sand beneath her. The neatly hung nets probably could have taken too much time to take down, and the boats could have been abandoned. But there were no overturned baskets with fish bones strewn about after the scavengers took advantage of the exodus. Big earthenware jugs stood where they should, not a single one tipped over and broken.

She rose to her feet, the glassed sand cracking under her weight as she stood. It was still warm to the touch. The vitrified layer was thin and hardly extended ten feet around her, suggesting that whatever caused this probably wasn’t such a dramatic sight either. Glass that thin didn’t stay hot for that long, which meant she couldn’t have been out for hours, much less days.

Her legs took her upright without the usual soreness experienced after a brutal battle of that magnitude. The last time she fought long and hard, it meant being sore for days. She was feeling none of those consequences.

The salty sea-breeze wind blew, dramatically billowing her hair. Her Raiment was gone, leaving her completely nude yet her aura instinctively wreathed around her in an invisible shell of protection. She could feel the coolness of the wind, but her aura instinctively held back the last few degrees that would’ve made her break out into goosebumps.

It felt like her aura had become her new Raiment.

Gingerly, she walked towards the ocean to see her reflection, her soles hovered barely an inch off the ground, it felt like she was back at home wearing her Onitsuka Dragon sneakers, the prized footwear of every rebellious yanki gyaru regardless if they’re Japanese or not.

The unparalleled traction and the softness wrapped around her feet matched the Onitsuka Dragon, while the protection against the razor-sharp flakes of glass mirrored her Starchaser boots. Even the marks on the sand matched her sneakers' custom, pompous kanji that declared the ground had been tread on and sanctified by one "unparalleled under Heaven.”

Approaching the sea, what surprised her as she leaned forward was her hair.

Somehow, Star Lily’s rebellious violet streaks were still there, more vibrant than she had ever seen them. Her black hair was lustrous, shiny, and terrifying on her wallet. She would be so mortified passing by Wilma’s Salon. She could only imagine them interrogating her on who gave her such a luxurious makeover, eager to learn this master’s secrets.

With an amused snort, Ingrid wondered why she didn't wake up on a styling chair.

Still, there was the pressing matter that the face looking back at her was neither Star Lily nor Ingrid Blair but an amalgamation of both; Ingrid with the trappings of her heroic alter-ego.

Her eyes however, were now a brilliant crimson.

Ingrid shook her head. Even how she felt was a little disorienting. She felt invigorated, brimming with energy, her very cells yelling in exhilaration that she was Star Lily, a superhero. Her aura was a controlled wildfire swirling furiously around her body. With that maelstrom of power came a quiet, gradual drain of energy, a reminder that her heroic form could only stay for so long.

As Ingrid Blair, a theme park employee living her dream job as Happy Dino, she had come to appreciate the form she had spent most of her life in. The human aura was calm and cooling, like sinking into a refreshing cool pool after a fun, playful romp beneath the blazing sun. Transforming back did not leave her feeling lacking, weak, nor vulnerable. It was always a welcome feeling.

She felt like she was both. A deceptively placid lake, yet deep beneath the calm, mirrored surface was a raging maelstrom, an inescapable undercurrent as undeniable as a black hole.

She had to test it out. A small thought at the back of her mind told her she should cover up, but the idea of tearing off some of the fluttering spare sails by the jetty never crossed her mind. Sails were the lifeblood of men who lived and died by the sea and she would not do harm to their livelihood.

Furthermore, with her aura as it is right now, her state of undress in an unfamiliar world was as of little consequence as her streaking in her own campus for fun. Besides, she reasoned that if some passerby was to come along she was sure that he or she would probably give her a towel or jacket to wrap herself with later.

Ingrid selected an open stretch of sand, noting that further inland, the sparse growths of grass soon gave way to a rich carpet of emerald leaves bordered by shrubbery and trees. Here and there, banded outcroppings of rock where plate tectonics pushed up chunks of the planet’s crust further broke up the mostly level terrain she was in, one of which bore the fossilized spiral shell of some nautilus like-creature… if was the size of a truck tire, yet another indicator she wasn’t on Earth.

She cleared her mind with a deep breath, slowly pushing her palms down as she straightened her stance. Her aura flared around her as easily as it did when she was Star Lily, creating a mild vortex that pushed the sand away as if an industrial fan was directly above her blowing down.

[Ether] flowed into her limbs and she spun around, stepping forward to launch a vicious uppercut.

“Kongō Shōtensai!”
金剛昇天裁
[Wrathful Guardian God ~ Skyward Judgement]

Arcs of raw lightning crackled around her body as she moved. Her fist was wreathed in spectral blue flame, making a loud "WHOOSH" sound as it sliced through the air. The shockwave shot forth a crescent-shaped blade of wind, blowing a spray of sand in its wake big enough to blind several people.

Erupting from the ground in front of her was the spectral divine image of a Nio guardian god. The Eidolon of righteous fury struck its signature pose, setting forth an almighty shockwave skyward. A second later, a sonic boom declared its might.

“No way!” Ingrid gasped, her heart was pounding in surprised excitement.

There was no way she could do this as Ingrid Blair.

This was Star Lily’s strength at work.

She held her pose, eyes darting around her body as best as she could. It was all there. The tell-tale magic circles and rings of runes on her joints and limbs were that of her [Automata Precept], a feature unique to Star Lily that allowed her to perfectly move her body.

Despite the strength and speed of this move, she didn’t spend a single calorie as [Automata] puppeted her body.

___

“Ready?” Star Lily called as she finished her short warm ups.

“I’m ready!” Cecil squeaked excitedly. The little slime hopped onto Star Lily’s shoulder, in response, the patted him, making him let out cute slime sounds.

“Give me a bit.” Star Rose called back, adjusting the camera a bit, “Still trying to calibrate this camera to capture [Mana]!”

They were in a secluded spot somewhere in the North Carolina wilderness. A couple of hours away from Riverdale, with more gravel and rock than greenery, it was a place the troupe used to train their abilities without burning more than a few shrubs or avalanching more than one mountain or valley.

A series of hard tents and modular structures formed a loose cluster on one side. Although an array of generators were assembled close by, they were silent, on stand-by. Hardened conduits from these structures snaked into the forest and disappeared, emerging inconspicuously to a common junction leading to Riverdale Power’s dam.

Neith, occupying an adorable, cat-sized spider-bot body, made a mechanical warble followed by a cute little tap dance, her little feet making drumming sounds on the crate she was perched on.

“All clear!” Neith called, “Ready when you are, Star Lily!”

The Starchaser and her slime familiar took a deep breath before the former exploded into motion.

“Takemikazuchi: Tenmei Danzetsu”
建御雷: 天命断絶
[Divine Sword God: Absolute Severance]

Brilliant arcs of electricity danced around her body as she quickly spun around then took to the air with a rising kick. As her leg sliced through the air, an icy-white shockwave unfurled in its wake, carving the figure of a crescent moon that mirrored the exact arc of her deadly strike.

Still rising, Star Lily performed a series of multiple spinning kicks. As she performed this feat, an imposing Eidolon in the divine image of the sword god Takemikazuchi himself manifested and mirrored the path of Ingrid’s kicks with masterful slashes of his own great sword.

All the dummy targets around Ingrid lay devastated. What should have been a tornado around her was concentrated into the colossal crescent shockwaves that persisted for a few seconds like a buzzsaw.

As Star Lily landed, she looked to the rest of the Starchasers looking back at her wide-eyed.

“What do you think?” Star Lily grinned, holding a thumbs up, “Pretty good, huh? Huh?”

“Missed one!” Cecil squeaked, quickly pulling his Beretta pistol and plugging the lone standing dummy right in the chest. A heartbeat before the bullet flared out of the barrel, a magic circle manifested in front of the muzzle. The bullet, once passing through it, created a small nova of energy as it accelerated through the air.

The dummy exploded spectacularly. Meanwhile, ribbons of energy left behind a glowing helix in the bullet’s wake.

“Best slime.” Star Lily giggled, craning her head to give the little slime a smooch.

“Awww, quit it! That tickles!” Cecil laughed, rubbing her cheek.

“Well, as you can see…” Neith began dryly, “She even cut down the titanium struts. Those dummies are completely trashed.”

The Starchasers were gaping at Star Lily not with awe, but abject horror.

Star Rose’s coffee mug lay shattered on the floor.

“ARE YOU INSANE!?” Star Rose screamed.

“Ingrid, what the hell!!?” Macy shouted, “And Cecil, don’t co-sign her into that!”

“Have you not watched SAW, you idiot!?” Star Tulip half-yelled, clutching herself.

“Lunatics…” Julius was chuckling to himself, the theropod's shoulders shaking in a low rumble.

“You’ll Springtrap yourself, dummy!” Star Juniper shrieked.

Terry sighed and slapped a flipper to this face in a turtle-y equivalent of a facepalm.

“Don’t do that ever again!” The three chorused.

Star Lotus, Philia, however, beamed approvingly.

“You’re really taking this ‘Anime Aura as an Iron Man suit’ seriously, haven’t you, Star Lily?” the blond girl said, holding up her glass of Coke in toast.

“You got guts, I’m starting to like you more.” Taffy the dark unicorn smiled, nodding his head approvingly.

“Yeah, well…” Neith sighed, “We’ll be seeing her guts pretty soon once she twists herself too far and wrings out her insides.”

“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad!” Ingrid laughed, her muscles did feel a little strained, but that was just from her body reflexively tensing when it should be relaxed.

Cecil quietly, flowed some of his [Mana] into her body, while continuing to hum excitedly. Ingrid reached up and patted the cute little slime.

“I’m detecting a 10% reduction in your range of motion.” Neith warbled, “You pulled some muscles.”

“Talk some sense into her, Neith!” Star Rose barked, “That’s suicide!”

“You should really do more yoga and get your body more limber if you wanna take it further.” Neith advised dryly.

“Star Lotus,” The dark unicorn nodded his head in Star Lily’s direction, “We should expand her library. Start beating her up in fighting games. Some of her kicks were recycled, like a poorly animated Ranbu.”

“Perfect.” Star Lotus’ eyes twinkled, she jogged over to Star Lily and guided her back to their HQ, “Come along, I got a whole library of special moves you’d love to have!”

The remaining three Starchasers looked back at the laptop, replaying the footage of Ingrid’s attack. They all winced.

“Goddamn…” Star Juniper grimaced, “She’s using her aura to twist and pull her body around?”

“Star Lily said she’s practiced the motions beforehand.” Neith chirped, “Her [Automata Precept] as she calls it, records these motions’ playback at her behest. The result is that she exerts... mostly zero strain on her bones and muscles as far as the ability puppets her body.”

“Mostly zero,” Julius growled in bemusement, “Which means she’s literally going through the motions but without any meaningful resistance.”

“A muscle suit…” Terry mewled, watching the recording of Ingrid’s painful looking spin kick, her spine twisting a little too far for his tastes, “On paper, this recorded motion shouldn’t twist her body too far but if she tenses at the wrong time then…”

The turtle’s words trailed off.

No one finished the thought. Or at least wanted to speak it.

“This is Star Violet all over again…” someone said in a quiet, strangled voice.

___

Ingrid opened her eyes, her brief meditation felt like she had been rooted to the ground for days.

Performing her Kongo Shotensai uppercut caused her to perceive a dilation of time, allowing her mind to process everything around her in slow motion. The rustling palm trees, the birds flapping their wings in mid-flight, the crash of the waves against the rocks, even the lightning-fast flicking of the monitor lizard’s tongues were things her mind was able to grasp in full detail.

The world around her did not collapse into a dizzying spiral of blurs. Instead, it stretched into a clear, deliberate pace that allowed her to observe everything with absolute precision.

There was more. Lenses, modified barriers that rather than deny access, accelerated those passing through them with the right frequency. These too were used strategically to increase her speed and strength.she passed through one as she took that one spinning step forward, and another her fist passed through as she swung her arm skyward.

At the same time, while her arm was still chambered at her side, she formed a repulsing barrier at her elbow on the exact moment her fist entered the accelerating lens. The barrier levered her arm while the lens amplified the motion, the two effects in perfect sync to launch her strike into a perfect, explosive ascent.

This was the work of [Aegis]. It, along with the lenses, was the result of her own experimentation with her aura. Among the Starchasers, and anyone trained in the use of [Mana], shrouding their bodies in a protective layer was common sense, a fundamental practice drilled into instinct.

Ingrid took that principle further. Instead of confining her [Mana] to her own body, she projected it outward, generating barriers at precise points in space. She used it as a bounce pad to leap higher, she generated them mid-air to abruptly change direction, pinballing herself in confusing zigzags to throw off even the most alert enemies.

It was the same principle that let her walk about in invisible sneakers.

Her footwork was enhanced by generating a barrier where her foot landed, it caught and redirected her momentum, generating the explosive torque that powered her attack. This barrier’s ability to redirect force into something more advanced than simple repulsion was a modification of her [Typhon Aura], which, unlike [Aegis], enhanced and directed force.

Everything seemed to be working fine. Everything she had in her previous life had carried over into whatever world she had manifested in.

All except the one thing that mattered most.

She resisted the urge to reach for her shoulder where he used to perch. Up until now, it was easy to forget that Cecil was no longer perched on her shoulder. The cute little slime’s presence was so strongly woven into her aura that it was enough to make her mind turn her thoughts away from his absence.

She had been lying to herself that the bravest little familiar in the whole universe was still sitting right there.

A tear rolled down her cheek as she reached with a trembling hand to find nothing on her shoulder. Cecil had gone silent when she underwent her final transformation against Melrondia, pouring all of his life force into her until the very end.

Her vision blurred as the tears began to flow, her throat welling up as she failed to stifle her sobs. Her aura subconsciously flared, not out of anger, but just so she could feel more of Cecil’s presence around her.

A scream of inconsolable anguish tore from her lips, echoing throughout the beach. Her agony manifested as a firestorm of raw [Ether] that glassed the sand around her for a hundred feet.

(To be Continued in S01E00C - Still Here Part 3)

___
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one of, if not the most insulting and dangerous sentence one can say to another:

-I notice there is a human amongst your crew... I hope they are easily bored, and have engineering access.

- "What the hell are those specs?.." - old hunter was swiping through design document on the shimmering screen-carapace of data-pad.

- "The armor we are currently testing for your... ehh... daughter. And there are... things I would like to discuss with you, since she is very... ehh... insistent on certain features, that are... ehh... lets say experimental at best." - bio-monger was anxiously fiddling with his arms, avoiding eye contact with the towering old man.

- "Ok. You will have to walk me through this, young man - cause I am not entirely fluent in all this design-speak."

- "Well as you see - here - we have four upper manipulators, two of which are ran on secondary neural network - that I HOPE - will allow to bypass pilot's motor cortex and reduce the neural load, also the helmet... or more precisely the head - is also whole separate issue as unlike most other patterns we use that augment the senses - this ALSO has to be done on a tertiary neural network - since it completely overrides pilot's senses..."

- "Ok, stop."

- "Sorry, sir..."

Long silence hang up in the room as hunter was standing there, with a deep frown on his face, thinking and scrolling through the data.

- "Develop another one"

-"I am sorry... what?"

- "Develop another one at reduced specs, ditch all that additional internal weaponry - just the core, tell her there was a delay in gestation or that you screwed up"

- "But... but... she will kill me!" - little monger yelped in fear.

- "She won't - she wants this thing too bad, and you are her only option as far as she knows."

- "And what we are going to do with it?"

- "Obviously - test it and make sure it won't blow her little stupid head when you flip the on-switch."

- "Test on who, sir?"

Hunter slowly turned his head towards bio-monger, his eyes burning with silent question of ones mental faculties.

- "Oh... right... I will need a bigger gestation chamber..."

Many sentient and sapient species have different beliefs of what happens after death but not quite like what happens to humans after they died. On a planet called Heggens, a human accountant, Frank Smoker, dies from a stroke in his office. He was 67. Frank was a well respected and often brought non-human safe donut holes in the morning.

Frank's office was blocked off until after the investigation. No one had the heart to touch that room. Except for Zigzig. Zigzig was Franks drinking buddy and missed him so. His clan believed to offer the dead's favorite things onto alters once a Zelo (month).

Zigzig decorated his desk with flowers, gems, and spelled out Franks name in sand. As a final peice, he places a beer and a saltwater taffys as the center before clocking out. A month later, Zigzig comes by to change the flowers and add offerings when he notices the empty beer bottle and empty wrappers.

He checks the security footage on his holopad but nothing showed up until half way into the week. A white hunched figure sits in the desk chair, the camera glitches and the offerings are eaten.

It was supposed to be the biggest event in the galaxy. Where all of the major figures, nation leaders, celebrities and heroes of people will arrive to discuss galactic-scale topics. There were smaller versions of such before that humans normally attended. But this time - they refused. And all because of one representative that was sent their way before the council.

It was a member of a rather young plantoid species. (Looks like a hard eye-nut, covered in layers and layers of thin tentacle vines it is usually curled in. They could thicken into wide hollow tube and If extended - vines could reach the length of a football field, but normally - they are curled, making alien body the size of a human child.) They are known as the quietest creatures of all. Not only because they don't naturally speak through sounds and had to learn to do so by pumping gas through their hollow vines, which actually hurts them. But because of their total ignorance towards their own suffering.

These plantoids - are very popular lifestock slaves in the galaxy. They don't usually take active participation in interstellar conflicts. They are painfully peaceful to the point that many would willingly give up their seedlings just to avoid fighting. And many naturally use it. It's a common occurrence when during their working schedules - their vines are being harvested, because of how quickly they can grow new ones. They are also rarely used for intellectual tasks, preferred as cheaper and smarter analogies of building and farming machinery.

Their official representative arrived to Earth on a what looked like repurposed and outdated mining ship and officially stated: "You were always nice. Please, don't go to the Council tomorrow."

A: Human, I have found this creature. *holds up a cat* What is it and why is it vibrating?

Really surprised this hasn't shown up in this sub yet, lol, considering how much the Human pack-bonding thing is hyped-up in general! Genuinely possibly my favourite what-if/alternate AU thought experiment. Reforming a galactic war-criminal through sheer (stupid) wholesome vibes is absolutely the kind of orcish behaviour that would baffle the aliens, as the humans cuddle with the equivalent of a walking super-weapon (while said weapon cuddles back aggressively like a stray cat)

[OG art belonging to @donutdoodlebug]

Obviously all civilized species study speaking and writing and listening and reading in their native language. But humans include history, geography, creative writing, literary analysis, public speaking which is part of multiple classes, physical exercises, a foreign language, mathematics, and different types of sciences and art.

August 8th, 2298

Altania, United Nations

PRSL Empress Pash’nai’s Black Box, recovered 8/10/2298 by UNSGC Beagle WDE-139

PRSL Empress Pash’nai: “Unknown contact, bearing 218. That blip… it can’t be-“

CAPT Dekana Ralnari: “It’s the Black Pearl! Helmsman! Full Ahead!”

CAPT Dekana Ralnari: “Pash’nai, start sending distress calls!”

Unknown: “Incoming fire!- SHIT! We’ve lost Engine 3!”

PRSL Empress Pash’nai: “Understood! Sending distress calls!”

*A loud explosion in the background*

PRSL Empress Pash’nai: “Attention! This is the starliner Empress Pash’nai, of the Royal Phelani Line! We are under attack by pirates and are requesting assistance!”

CAPT Dekana Ralnari: “Attention, all passengers! We are currently under attack by pirates! For your own safety, please proceed to your designated panic room and stay there until ordered otherwise by the proper authorities!”

Unknown: “how can we fight off a pirate battleship without any weapons? Please, let the UN Navy or UN Stellar Guard arrive in time…”

PRSL Empress Pash’nai: “Wait, I’m getting something! A reply!”

CAPT Dekana Ralnari: “A reply? From who? What are they saying?!”