Author's Preface
We don't know where the humans came from. One moment we had a functioning Federation, united in our peaceful goals; the next moment these monsters sprang up on our borders and caused havoc.
May whatever brought them here swallow them up.
— Federation President Xurxur, 1 B.I.
The bridge of the ship was bustling with activity.
Officers called out status reports, and Nixtred felt lost and alone.
Next to her stood Captain Nascimento, a dark-skinned Human. Nixtred was again surprised that Humans had different skin colors, the way Shraphen had different fur. But she was no biologist, so what did she know?
"Renthai Nixtred, we're ready to launch now, né?"
Nixtred was a weapons designer, not used to being on starships, let alone Human ones.
Equip the VLS frame with the drives, sensors, and fusion core, transit to the enemy, and release your torpedoes: one of those solutions that seem painfully obvious after someone has done the hard work of getting to it.
Creating a virtual model with Hephaestus had been quick work. Up until that point, the process wasn't that different from her usual one on Burrow.
But the fact that Jane Nesbitt and Major Pfershy ordered a prototype built, and a test the following day aboard a requisitioned missile frigate, was extraordinary.
The captain kept staring at her. The test, right.
"Captain, this weapon is untested. I'm not sure about the outcome."
"Beleza, that's why we're here, Renthai. Why run endless simulations when you can, uh... Falhar rápido, aprender rápido—"
He snapped his fingers.
"—Fail fast, learn fast."
Another Human thing. Blow it up to see why it failed. No Shraphen would do that. But then again, no Shraphen fleet had discovered FTL guns.
"Yes, Captain, let's start the test."
The frames didn't fit into the standard VLS tubes, but the Apollo was equipped with a mission pod, so the techs had loaded them there.
The dummy drones were stationed at two AU distance.
"Launch."
The captain's order bellowed out through the bridge, and Nixtred's tail moved instinctively between her legs.
She feared something might go critically wrong. Feared she might lose her position, might get ridiculed.
The frame launched.
Googly eyes followed it until it was at a safe distance.
"Prepare for transit."
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"Transit."
The frame disappeared in a white flash.
"Time to target, nineteen seconds."
At least it didn't blow up at entry.
"Renthai, you look nervous. Everything is fine."
The relaxed manner of Captain Nascimento put her a bit at ease. Only a bit.
"What if it fails?"
"Then we learned how it doesn't work, and you build a new one, a better one. We're stationed here for as long as you need us."
"Target reached, ending transit."
On the screens of the monitoring probes, they watched the frame exit transit.
The torpedoes launched as programmed.
It works. By the Great Hunters, it works.
She hadn't finished the thought before the torpedoes hit their intended targets, one after another.
Not one dummy drone managed to launch its countermeasures.
Incredible. On the first try!
"A-Drive failure. Frame drive is charging."
What? Why? That shouldn't happen. The frame should go to sleep so it could be reused if it survived the battle.
She ran to the control station. Saving the frame, seeing if it could be reused, was essential.
Before she could say anything, the frame disappeared.
"Transit."
Where—
A bright flash showed up for a second on the monitoring probe's stream, then it was gone, together with the probe.
"Switching to probe two."
"Probe two gone as well. Scanning for probes three to six."
Did the frame destroy the probes?
"Sir, I found a live stream. Probe six has captured the events."
"On screen."
The probe showed the frame from behind. For an instant, Nixtred could see sparks around the frame's A-Drive, then the frame flashed as it entered transit.
Only to fall out of it uncontrollably a fraction of a second later, reduced to highly unstable atoms and radiation, destroying the armored sensor probes in a wide cone around the frame's transit vector.
"Meu Deus."
Captain Nascimento stood there, staring like the rest of the crew at the destroyed test site.
She had failed. Utterly failed. The frame went into transit unstable, for whatever reason...
Then the bridge crew began to applaud.
Had they gone mad?
"What a spectacle. Can you make this a feature, Renthai?"
Her ears lay flat on her head. She felt bathed and left to drip dry.
"Make what a feature?"
"The unstable transit, entendeu? Hitting the enemy with the frame at FTL. It's incredibly destructive, and the enemy can't steal our technology."
Nixtred was baffled for a second.
Yes, the prototype failed, but the destructive capabilities of this failure were enormous.
"But… it's wasteful, if we can reuse the frame."
"Renthai, you know what's wasteful? Losing a ship. I recommend we gather what data we can and dock at your fascinating secret base. Hannes has promised me authentic xinxim de galinha, and I want to see if he can pull it off."
————
The trip to Shambhala's docks would take about two hours. Nixtred decided to grab a coffee. The Human stimulant was almost addictive.
Maybe I should start a study on it.
"Renthai Nixtred, Renthai Nixtred, we found it!"
Hearing her name shouted through the canteen, she turned. A red-faced technician she didn't know ran up to her, a Glider sitting on his shoulders.
"Yes?"
"We solved why the frame's A-Drive recharged."
"Oh?"
"I solved it, Michel."
The red-faced tech looked at the Glider. Nixtred still wasn't used to the Gliders. Humans had worked with them for two years, but she had been on ice for most of that time. Even Vextred had Glider friends now. To hear their voices in your head… it seemed almost intrusive.
"Yes, that is our chief engineer, IfegotThisShit. We studied the frame before launch, and then the telemetry—"
"I can speak for myself, Michel."
The Glider chewed on a mango while sitting on the poor tech's shoulders, sap dripping on the tech's uniform while the Glider's voice in her head continued.
"Long story short. The torpedoes are launched via a spark coupling, transferring enough energy to start the primer pumps for the engines. This causes static electricity along the casing. Normally not an issue."
Nixtred saw it now, clear as day.
"The static charge jumped into the A-Drive."
"Right. Human A-Drives are designed as energy sinks, so the static electricity charged it."
She had wrongly assumed Human drives were like Shraphen ones. A lesson to remember for the future.
"But your design is brilliant. How did you get the idea to adapt the Human Rapid Dragon system?"
The what now?
————
André leaned back in his office chair, feet on the desk, and moved the holographic screen into a comfortable spot.
"Jane, I tell you, Gladys and FuckItImOut are perfect for your little asteroid station."
Jane Nesbitt frowned.
"It's not a little asteroid, and it's not mine."
"Yeah, I know, it's not the size that matters but how you use it."
"André, shut up. I can see FuckItImOut working here with our Gliders, but to bring a spawn spider…"
Sipping his coffee, André waved his hand.
"She changed; she's now a fluffy dog. Her fur even feels real."
"She's still a spawn, and if she's so fluffy—" Jane emphasized the last word "—why can't she stay with your unit?"
"Because the Venatores are fighting a war here. I want her out of harm's way. And her knowledge about the Hyphae might be useful."
"A war… Come on."
"I tell you, something is up; I feel it. We shouldn't have followed Drake, but continued to take out the conspirators. I fear a new Oligarchy war coming."
"You're paranoid, André."
"Doesn't mean no one's after me. No, seriously. It's all back. Senators having heart attacks, bureaucrats and judges dying in car accidents. Someone is preparing. Cambodia was the proof of it. They managed to kidnap Defector without anyone knowing."
Jane frowned again.
"If you're right, Shambhala might be in danger."
"My tip: go dark, change course, and accelerate, at least until this is over. We can't risk them getting their hands on it. At least increase security."
"It's an asteroid, not a cruiser. We can't change course that easily."
André thought about the crew roster.
"I'll talk to Major Pfershy; maybe I can send some people as security."
Jane shook her head.
"No. He read your reports. And with Atlantis now secured and Camp Troy transformed into a full outpost, he plans to relocate a lot of troops here anyway. All Shraphen."
Smart guy… We should try to get more Shraphen to Earth, too. Maybe even some of their ships.
"Good, the work you're doing there is important."
"Yes, it is, André. Be careful out there."
André thought back to the almost catastrophic Cambodia mission.
"Always, you know me."
"That's why I said it."
She ended the transmission with a smile.
That woman, always the last word.
André prepared a message for Major Pfershy, greenlighting a greater contingent of soldiers on Shambhala. Then he drafted a request for Karrn.
We need more Shraphen in Sol. Something is brewing, and it's gonna get hot soon.
Old spies have a sixth sense; you either develop it, or you won't get old. We feel when something is about to happen. Changes in traffic patterns, or an air conditioning unit sounding different. Sometimes it is something even more out there. Like light reflecting on your coffee cup where no light should be.
André's instincts kicked in before his conscious brain did. Throwing the cup in one direction while diving from his chair to the other side.
Not a second too soon.
The impact was no explosion, rather a dull fupp sound.
His office was on the 96th floor of the AIN Headquarters. The windows were thirty-centimeter-thick Smart Transparent Aluminum. No normal gun should be able to penetrate it.
But the sweet taste of vanilla ice cream in his ears told him everything he needed to know.
Protomatter-infused bullets.
"Sure, sure, I'm paranoid."
————
"See, Renthai, I told you you need a break."
Nixtred didn't want to, but she had to agree. Sitting in the open at Han O'Lo's and eating the amazing foreign-tasting food of Captain Nascimento's home, it was what she needed.
"Hannes is a wizard; this xinxim tastes exactly like my mainha made it."
From the neighboring table, a young dark-skinned female Human looked over and smiled at the captain.
"He calls them. That's his secret."
"That devil!"
Both laughed. Nixtred enjoyed the evening. The station recreated a warm summer evening so realistically that she almost felt at home.
Both laughed. Nixtred enjoyed the meal. The station recreated a warm summer evening so realistically she almost felt at home.
Nascimento started making small talk with the woman from the neighboring table. Nixtred smelled pheromones in the air.
Maybe that's what Dr. Jane meant when she said Nascimento was a womanizer.
Sniffing the air again, Nixtred smelled something else. The wind was blowing from the entry gallery on the side of the Cylinder, and she had noticed before that sitting at O'Lo's, you could smell newcomers if the wind was right.
Now she smelled a lot of newcomers. Shraphen, all of them.
She finished eating, and the smell of Shraphen came closer, so they probably walked down the street, as she had done a week ago.
Something was off. Something familiar. Almost like… Vextred? Impossible. He was still in rehabilitation, and then he would be transferred back to Burrow.
They had just talked yesterday.
But… the scent was clearly him.
————
Its bioship had landed unseen. Not a single surveillance station or sensor grid was advanced enough to detect it.
It stood on the outskirts of a large city. The information had been correct. It had found an Altir colony.
How was that possible?
It ordered the ship to dig in and hide. The ship would rest and replenish while it began its mission.
Find the Altir if they are there, gather information, prepare for our arrival.
The walk to the city was long, but it enjoyed its new form, so it enjoyed the walk.
The spaceport ahead was an ideal entry point into the colony.
The fence surrounding the spaceport was electrified, so it had to morph into a local reptilian animal and slither through without touching the live wires.
From there it was easy to enter a building, and soon it stood before an Altir-form servant who checked the travelers' passports.
Its ship had already hacked the colony's systems before landing, so it had a valid passport and a backstory.
"Passport."
It reached into its pocket and handed the mimetic material, shaped into a passport, to the officer.
"Port of departure was Sagan City? A Cloudy?"
It had to clear its throat. The last time it had spoken was eight hundred years ago, in a completely different language.
"Yes, officer."
The officer compared the picture on the passport with its face, then the fingerprints and genetic markers.
All of them were fake, but the colony's primitive technology could not detect any of it.
"Welcome to Sydney. Have a nice day."
"Thank you, sir."
It had passed easily as an Altir, so it could establish a cover life without difficulty.
The colony's network allowed it to gather information on every subject of the colony and its history. The colony was unsurprisingly full of subforms of Altir. Humans, as they called themselves.
A signal from its communications servitor distracted it. The orophus had collapsed. The mutated ones had managed to destroy the forebears' installation.
A setback.
The reformers were clearing the mutations now. But they had no way to reach the mutations' homeworld.
It knew the Altir in this galaxy would solve that problem. It was in their genetic code, after all, no matter the genetic drift. Altir would try to dominate. And the mutated ones would fight against it.
With the orophus gone, the reformers and its Master's fleets would need to take the long way, if they did not find another orophus.
A few thousand years. Not a large issue. Time was something its kind simply watched pass.
But could it do something while it waited?
It went through its mission again.
Find the Altir if they are there, gather information, prepare for our arrival.
The last part left some slight room for interpretation.
It could prepare the Altir for the arrival. Teach them the right way.
If it didn't succeed, the master would cleanse this place. Either way, a wild Altir colony must not be allowed to stay.
It just needed to find a group called the Oligarchs. Its chosen tools.