The Spartan Chronicles - Volume 4

[Hydro]

UN Headquarters

'HEY! Carol! Over here!"

Carol looked over the sea of people in the cafeteria as she searched for the voice. There was so much activity and bustle that it was hard to tell where her friend's voice had come from.

"Over here! Agazi Section."

She looked left and, sure enough, there was Francis waving his arm at her. His table wasn't quite full, and it was pretty clear he had been saving a place for her, as he usually did. Having found him she made a b-line toward his table through the labyrinth of tables, floor pillows, partitions and other culturally sensitive eating arrangements that the UN ensured were available. Of these Carol disliked the pillow clutches the worst since they took up lots of room and since the clods who chose them took the liberty to spread out at the expense of those around them. Even worse, they weren't even Asian or of an eastern persuasion: they were simply inconsiderate space hogs.

As she got near Francis enthusiastically moved over to give her more room at the table.

"We're all here except for Raol. Come. Sit by me! In insist!" he said as he made an elaborate show of dusting off her chair.

"Flirt. Just get your hands out of the way before I sit down, OK? No 'accidents' involving your hands and my rear end, like on Friday," Carol said in a deadpan.

Francis looked wounded. "Wha..? How could you suggest such a thing! That is against all the equal protection laws, and such behavior violates at least three protocols on inappropriate contact! If I did that I would not be respecting your diversity, and I would never do that!"

Carol heard a few snickers, probably from Clar, Sanchez and Patricia. "Fine, then. Just get your wandering and free-thinking hands out of the way." She seated herself without incident, although she half expected a fleeting warm brush.

Francis pointed at the pudding in the upper left portion of Carol's plate with a semi-flaccid stalk of steamed celery. "So you got the Mongolian Tzi' Lo'n Pudding? What do you think?" As soon as he finished he started munching away on the celery.

"Well, considering I just sat down I have no idea. If you didn't make such a production out of everything I might actually get to eat my lunch before it got cold, for once," Carol said with a tad of sharpness in her voice.

Francis held up his hands in mock surrender and continued munching away. He did not take his eyes off her as she picked up her spoon. It was unnerving and she tried to ignore him.

Finally she got around to the pudding. After taking a bite Francis asked her, "Well? What do you think?"

Carol chewed a couple times. "Well, it's kind of earthy, and even a little meaty, which is a little strange for a pudding. Not sweet. Have you had it?"

Francis screwed up his face in disgust. "Not a chance. Blood pudding isn't my bag."

Carol stopped chewing. "Blood pudding?"

"Yup. Ever since that little encounter I had with 'Cratcho'll' I always do a datalinks search on their daily specials," he said. "I NEVER want to eat processed cockroaches again. Today's special translates as 'blood pudding'. "

She put her spoon down gently on her plate even though she wanted to throw it at Francis.

"Hey, you going to eat that?" he asked as he pointed at her steamed prawn in a light herb sauce.

"Paws off!" Carol hid her prawn under the protection of a hastily acquired fork as she saw Francis's fork descending toward her prize. "These are the best on Planet, and we're not likely to see any more any time soon, with the Gaians under siege and all. So, back off and let me enjoy my prawn."

Francis did back off, but only physically. "Well, serves the Tree Huggers right for sucking up to those war-monger Spartans for so long. Live by the sword, die by the sword."

"What did the Gaians ever do to anyone to deserve being invaded? They certainly did nothing to Yang except try to defend themselves, and they certainly did nothing against the Aliens. What are you talking about?" Carol asked.

"All I am saying is that the Tree Huggers have always been the lap dog of the Spartans," Francis explained. "All the Crazy Coronal has to say is 'Jump' and our favorite Forest Frolicker says 'How high?' They should have seen it coming and made peace when they could. But, no, they didn't, and now it's too late. Too bad for them."

"You know, Francis," Carol said as she realized how much of a ***** Francis could be, "you're being a bigger moron than usual. I suppose you couldn't understand why the Gaians wouldn't want peace with Yang? It might be because, oh, he almost exterminated them 30 years ago? Might she be loyal to the Spartans because Santiago was her only friend and stood beside her and her Gaians when she needed them most? We, the valiant Peacekeepers and upholders of the Charter, didn't even help her even though she has more in common with us than to the Spartans. We could have helped but, to our shame, we didn't to a thing except offer worthless official protests. She hadn't done anything to Yang but get in his way, even if Yang was to tool of that bastard Moran."

"The Gaians have always had their chance at peace, but they have let their lofty ideals get in the way…" Francis started.

Carol was incredulous. "Lofty ideals? Like the UN Charter? Or how about the UN Bill of Rights? Like those 'Lofty Ideals'? Do you even realize what you are saying? And, for the record, Yang and Morgan never offered her peace. There were no terms except total surrender, and in the end they didn't even accept that. They had no reason to accept any kind of peace since Santiago was busy crushing the University and we didn't get involved. They proved that the powerful can roll over the weak, and it is happening all over again. Now, instead of that rat bastard Morgan, the Hive is sucking up to these Aliens, and he is sopping up the spoils, just like 30 years ago. What chance to the Gaians have? None! And here we sit on our hands while good people die! What good are our 'Lofty Ideals' and our precious Charter if we can stand by and let the weak be consumed not once, but twice!"

Carol now had the undivided attention of the whole table. Nearby conversation stopped and heads were turning.

"This time Yang offered her peace! He gave his word…" Francis started again.

"HIS WORD?!!" Carol interjected. "The same Yang that enslaved her people, and put all of them in punishment spheres for 25 YEARS?!! The same Yang that obliterated two Spartan cities and almost 200,000 people with planetbusters? The same Yang that set off a tactical nuke at Sparta Command? The same Yang that started using horror of chemical weapons, forcing the Spartans to respond in kind? The same Yang that voted to repeal the UN Charter? Would you believe someone, anyone, if they did that to you or had such an infamous record? Are you surprised that she told him, after being betrayed so many time, to f*ck off?!!"

Carol stood up. Her mind was clear and her thoughts were racing. In fact, nothing had seemed so clear in a long, long time. "And what business do we have buying peace with Yang and the Aliens at the price of the exterminations of the Gaians? Do you, or any of you, remember your history and the partition of that country in eastern Europe during World War 2? Are we that weak that we will buy our freedom, for a little while, by sacrificing another people? Do we Peacekeepers buy our peace with the blood of others? Is that what you mean? Is that what we stand for?"

All around her heads were nodding. Several people looked at her with squinted eyes, but more had looks of shock, sadness or a grim determination on their faces.

"And now the Spartans, your 'war mongers', are not what we would want them to be. Yes, they voted against the Charter, but only because Yang was using weapons of mass destruction against them. Their wars against the University were a tragic misunderstanding that were wrapped up in the arrogance of both sides, and I wished they had not happened. I also wish that the war between the Hive and Spartans had not happened. But the Spartans did not start last war. If you look carefully you will find they don't start wars, but they do finish them. You can hate their martial ways but you can respect their ideals, even if they are brutal.

And for all that do they deserve to be exterminated? Have you seen the vids? There were 20,000 DEAD, slaughtered civilians from Hero's Waypoint. Oh, sure, the Hive denied it, but vids like that can't lie. The Spartans and even the Hive would never do such a thing - forced migration and then summary execution. How alien are these Aliens? Do they think human life is worth so little? How could they simply gun them down like cattle? Or maybe the think we ARE cattle? I heard the rumors ghastly rumors about the Aliens, and I didn't believe them until I saw the holovids. One little girl even looked like she had been partially eaten! Eaten!! And these Aliens are the Hive's new allies. Just think of that. First, he learned treachery and how to be amoral from Morgan, now he learns how to be truly ruthless from his Alien friends, who have raised genocide to an art form.

Pretty picture? Want another? What do you think this amoral, treacherous and ruthless Yang and his Alien buddies will do when they are done exterminating the Spartans and conquering the Gaians? Who's next? Hmmm? Let me think for a minute: what would a faction bent on world domination do before going on his killing spree? Maybe, divide and conquer, like he has done to us? Make us stand on the sidelines while those who we share so many ideals with, like the Gaians, are crushed, and those that would stand with us, like the Spartans, are completely destroyed? After they're gone who would be the next victim? The Believing Drones with their four cities? I don't think so - it will be us.

And do you know what I think? I think that if we let this happen that we deserve it! We will have failed the Charter and everything the UN stands for. We will be an empty shell, a cipher, and a failed dream to be swept into the dustbin of history. And, who will win? The very antithesis of what we stand for: the bloodthirsty, amoral, and treacherous - those who do not value human life, and who will stomp on the face of humanity forever. The last chance of humanity will be lost because we failed!."

Silence filled the cafeteria. Carol looked down at a wilted Francis. Suddenly she realized that the entire room was looking at her and she looked around. It was strange, but the people she stared at seemed to sit straighter when she glanced at them. She looked from face to face and saw no doubting faces. It both thrilled and scared her. She thought, have I don't this?.

Here diatribe and obviously touched many people either by vocalizing what they were thinking or by clarifying the issues so they could actually see.

Carol realized they were waiting - waiting for her to continue.

"We can't let this happen. We just can't," she said in a quiet voice that flowed through the entire cavernous eating establishment. "It isn't right. We can't betray everything we stand for, and everyone that would stand with us. Sooner or later the sword will fall on us, too, and all we would do is postpone that day a little with the blood of others. We don't want to fight, but we must. If we don't than we're no better than Yang, or his Alien allies.

We have to fight for what we believe in, or we believe in nothing," she said clearly.

Carol looked across the sea of faces. She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and saw that Francis had stood up. She turned to face him, and he unexpectedly gave her a gentle hug. He whispered softly into her ear, "You're right." Carol was shocked since she'd never known Francis to admit his was wrong to anyone. That was why he was such a lovable and unpredictable jackass.

She almost didn't hear his whisper, though. The men and women in the cafeteria were shouting their approval.

Francis broke away from the embrace and they both looked around them. The previously quiet cafeteria was not a throng of motion; a few were leaving en mass, but most were going up toward Carol in a wave to agree with her, or just to touch her. It was really quite extraordinary. Francis, however, was clearly enjoying the attention, even if he was an almost innocent bystander.

All she could do was return the smiles she was receiving. On impulse she raised her clenched fist into the air. Francis raised his fist shortly after hers, and the mass of friends and coworkers that surrounded them followed.

Carol was exultant, but she couldn't help thinking, My god! What have I started?

[senatus]

100 Kilometers West of Hero's Waypoint


Sub-conqueror Viir was perplexed, to say the least.


Assigned the task of securing the advance route leading from the recently-conquered
Invader base to one of Conquerer Zzar's strategic objectives - namely,
the headquarters base of the Invader Spartans, Viir's hardened drop infantry
unit and a supporting Ogre had moved quickly from their landing zone at
the captured base.  Deep radar scans had confirmed that no Invader
military were nearby to bar the way; if Viir's unit was lucky and the Invaders
caught off guard, Zzar had even hoped that they would be able to secure
an important defensive outpost halfway between Honor: Progenitor and the
potential target before the enemy could heavily garrison it.


So it was a surprise to Viir as her scouts reported coming under small-arms
fire ahead.  The weaponry was pathetic against her troops, even by
Invader standards, but it was unexpected.


"Tactical officer: query.  Nature and level of threat: assessment?"


Her tactical officer unlimbered his deep radar sensor and studied it
for a moment.  He looked up at her in a moment of astonishment before
ducking his head in accustomed deference.


"Identification: Invader worker drones?!  Resistance: Minimal,
but resilience: high."


Viir didn't take umbrage at her tac officer's breach of time-honoured
protocol; she recognized his surprise which resonated with her own. 
Like the Progenitors, the Invader humans had an under-class of workers
- in Progenitor society, these were literally referred to as "drones";
the Yang human term was "civilians", which were bred for labour, not combat. 
In fact, the Progenitor drones were mentally incapable of combat; such
a privilaged task was reserved for the elite warrior Conquerers and some
of the more esteemed Stochastics.  So why were these Invader Spartan
workers fighting instead of meekly submitting to extermination?


Perhaps there were warriors masquerading as workers, using them as camoflauge? 
That was a clever tactic, and characteristically dishonourable as these
Spartans had proved themselves.  No matter, thought Viir.  They
would die regardless.  She gave the order to regroup and unlimber
the Ogre's heavy guns against the Invaders.

---

Jerome Waters was once the second assistant administrator of Hero's
Waypoint Recycling Tanks.  He was also, in his spare time, Reserve
Private Jerome Waters of the Spartan Civil Defence.  The reservist
suspected his career in the latter capacity would be very short - especially
as he was now drawing unwanted attention to his prone position - but fired
his weapon regardless.  The rifle bucked against his shoulder as the
bullet left the muzzle, an obsolete technology pitted against modern standards. 
He'd have to get incredibly lucky to do any damage against these armoured
bugs.  Nevertheless, fighting and dying was always preferable to simply
dying, and he squeezed the trigger again as he sighted along the barrel.


"Waters!  Lay down a suppressing fire," Reserve Lieutenant Alfred
Wright ordered, as he prepared retreat his other CDs in good order. 
It would mean that Waters was a dead man, but he might be able to buy a
minute or three for the rest of the CD unit.  If Wright could keep
on doing this tactic - which evidence over the last hour indicated he could
- he could probably buy Sparta Command another forty-five minutes.


That precious time wouldn't be enough to save Wright or the rest of
the civilians in colony pod C-537-D.  Nothing was going to save them,
and Alfred Wright tried hard not to think of his wife and five-year-old
son in the pod train.  Probably Ellen was dead already - she had been
part of the rearguard, and soon Jonathon would join his mother.  Not
before Alfred breathed his last dying breath, however.


It wasn't supposed to have been that way.  The colony pods had
evacuated Hero's Waypoint in good order, and the plan had been to rendezvous
at the Eastguard bunkers on the road to Sparta Command.  But instead,
the aliens had continued to pursue and massacre the fleeing civilians. 
Pod C-535-D had been cut apart like an overripe melon by the alien energy
beams, and seven hundred and sixty-eight civilians had died instantly. 
Another twenty-eight hundred had died agonizing deaths by fungal asphixiation
in the next few minutes - there were only so many breather masks to go
around.  Yet they were more lucky than the remaining fourteen hundred
or so; they were hunted down and killed on the spot, or taken for darker
purposes.


Pod C-536-D was more prepared; they'd chosen to block the road to try
to give C-537-D a chance to escape.  Considering most of the childrens'
creche was in C-537-D, that made sense.  Unfortunately, their determined
stand hadn't lasted more than a few minutes against the intense weaponry
the alien mech wielded.  Ellen had been one of those brave defenders,
and it must've broken her heart when she'd realized that Alfred and Jonathon
weren't going to make it after all.


Clearly though, the aliens' main objective was to blitzkrieg forward
and occupy the Eastguard bunker complex before Sparta Command could garrison
it.  It was a strategic position; half-way between Hero's Waypoint
and Sparta Command itself, it commanded the only road between the aliens
and Headquarters.  And the only people between the aliens and the
bunker complex were the Civil Defence of colony pod C-537-D.  Everyone
in Alfred Wright's unit knew that - including Jerome Waters - and they
were determined to sell their lives for the defence of the Homeland. 
Their lives, the lives of their spouses and even their children were already
lost.  Nothing else remained except honour and death.  For a
Spartan, those were enough.


Jerome Waters never even saw the singularity blast of the Progenitor
Ogre before it hit him.  But his death bought a few seconds as the
massive weapon recharged.  Likewise, so did the deaths of Marylin
Cotters, Hideko and Takaya Ito, Gunter Zweig, and hundreds more. 
Precisely forty-one minutes had passed since Jerome Waters had been given
his final orders, and now it was just down to Alfred Wright, and a few
dozen isolated militia scattered over a hundred square kilometers. 
Nothing remained to slow the aliens further - the bugs were overrunning
the last positions - but it had been enough.


"Sparta Command - this is it.  I'm at coordinates 571 by 281 off
the sensor grid at Eastguard.  We're being overrun and we're almost
all gone.  Do what you have to do," Reserve Lieutenant Alfred Wright
ordered almost calmly as he emptied the last of his clip into an alien
not five meters away.  The bullets bounced off the strange alien armour
without visible effect.


"Understood, Spartan.  You will be remembered."  The response
came back, and Wright smiled even as the alien loomed over him.  His
duty was done.  The alien's weapon shredded the unarmoured Spartan
instantly, but five seconds later a deadly rain of hyper-accelerated shard
artillery rained down on Wright's last radioed position, and the alien
joined the human in death.


The Spartan Army had reached Eastguard in time.

---

"Honoured Conquerer Marr: I, Viir, am ashamed to report failure in
achieving our primary objective.  My life is forfeit.  I ask
only that I and my unit be allowed to remain in current position, so that
my successor be able to carry on the attack against the Invader Spartans."


The holoprojection bowed itself before Marr, ritually exposing its vitals
for execution.  The fact that Viir was hundreds of kilometers away
did not make her submission any less genuine, for she would return for
execution or die in battle as Marr commanded her.  The young conquerer
knew this, and knew tradition demand he make either choice.  Marr
could sense his Personalities instructing him on the proper course of action.


But... no.  Viir had made a solid effort.  She had failed,
yes, yet not through any personal fault, but through the unexpected actions
of the Spartan drone civilians.  If she died now, she would never
learn to become a greater warrior; and without learning, how could one
ever progress?  Besides, now that the Spartan Invaders had occupied
the bunker position in force, both Viir's unit and the irreplaceable Ogre
would be exposed to whatever counter-strike the humans could muster. 
That was certainly an acceptable outcome by tradition, but it seemed...
wasteful.


"Permission denied," Marr ordered, and Viir lowered her neck in obedience,
knowing that immediate execution by proxy would be the alternative. 
But she was to be surprised for the second time in one day, as Marr gave
his next instructions.


"Retreat, and return your unit to base for repair and resupply." 
Marr grew suddenly thoughtful before continuing.


"And capture and retrieve intact one of the surviving human 'civilians'. 
Preferably an adolescent youngling, female."


Marr's image faded, and Viir exchanged perplexed looks with her tactical
officer, for both the orders - retreat, and retrieval - were as unorthodox
and bizarre as anything they had ever heard.  Far preferable would
have been the simple order to stay and die for their failure.


Viir began to understand why the other Warriors referred to the young
Conquerer Marr as "the strange one."  And the first stirrings of curiosity
overcame her deep-seated sense of tradition.

[senatus]

Strategic Planning Centre, Sparta Command


The uniform armour of the Headquarters Guard was highly polished and
militarily immaculate, yet for all that, only a complete idiot would've
thought that the Guards' function was intended for just show.  A close
look into the hard, unflinching eyes of any of the fifty men and women
charged with the duty of protecting the Strategic Planning Centre - and
the officers of the Spartan Federation command staff - known commonly as
the Junta - would immediately dispel that impression, for the Headquarters
Guard were, like their historical predecessors in the Praetorian Guard,
"Elites".


That designation alone hardly made them unique, of course, at least
within Sparta; many if not most all other Spartan units had also earned
that designation.  Other factions, seeing the Spartan lead, had also
fallen into the habit of designating their best military as "Elite", even
though they would only have been considered Veteran troops by Spartan standards. 
Of course, no other faction liked admitting that, so the term was far over-used. 
In truth, none of the Peacekeeper forces - who had never seen battle -
nor the Morganic mercenaries, nor the Drone Believers motley if dedicated
troops were truly deserving of the term, matched against the objective
standards set by the Junta for the soldiers of Sparta. Even the Human Hive
could field only one or two battle-hardened units worthy of that standard,
although the Hiverian navy was second to none on Planet.


Unlike the Praetorians, the Headquarters Guard was their complete and
total dedication to their duty, for they were unquestionably willing to
die to the last soldier with an unflinching fanaticism that could have
only been matched by Sister Miriam's most ardent followers.  A not-insignificant
number of the Guard were descendants of members of the Junta itself; 
not due to nepotism or favouritism of any sort; rather, the prestige associated
with the duty was seen as a fitting tradition for the members of Sparta's
oldest military families.


The Guard, for all their dedication, were humanly fallible; Haraad Ashandi
had, in the past, penetrated their security in the guise of Gavin Burge. 
Even the planet's foremost and most infamous chameleon empath, however,
would've been suicidally foolhardy to attempt to penetrate the security
of the Strategic Planning Centre itself; behind the two-metre thick plasma
steel blast doors of the entrance were numerous inhuman sensors
and security devices; retinal scanners, mass sensors, voice recognition
systems, DNA samplers, and more.


A probe operative with the computer skills of Datajack Roze might've
been able to bypass these systems - but only maybe, for the computer locks
had been designed by the famous Edgecrusher himself -and he'd designed
them so that even he couldn't get past the security systems. 
With the exception of the control room to the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm,
there was no place as secure from prying eyes as the Strategic Planning
Centre.


In terms of physical security, only the Tactical Planning Centre
was better protected; and it was used for the sole (and unprecedented)
scenario of defending Sparta Command itself.  The TPC's facilities
had never been used in a live scenario, although that could obviously change
soon.  After the TPC, the SPC was, however, just about one of the
safest, most secure locations on the planet.


Which is ironic, considering that no-one here seems to be taking
any reassurance in the supposed "safety" of this place, thought "Colonel"
Corazan Santiago, President of the Spartan Federation, and Supreme Commander
of the Spartan Armed Forces and Civil Defence.


Right now, in fact, a dozen or more voices were talking at once in urgent,
if not quite panicked, tones.  Even the more experienced heavyweights
on the Junta were speaking in quick, whispered consultations with their
aides.


Well, dammit, they should've seen this coming, Santiago thought,
and picked up the Terran ceremonial sword on the blotter before her to
bang twice, sharply, on the table with the hilt of the ancient weapon.


"Silence!  Chaos is not a productive environment for our
deliberations!"


Instantly, the room fell silent, and Santiago took a deep breath as
she marshalled her own thoughts.  Her eyes swept the room briefly,
taking in the occupants.  Salvadore St-James' face was grim, but calm. 
Hui Wang - concerned, but certainly not panicked.  Xavier Bisset -
revived from his cryocell for this conference, as per his standing instructions,
should Sparta ever be invaded - was completely impassive and unreadable. 
And Honshu - was that calculation in his eyes?  The other members
of the Junta - currently twenty-three in number - weren't exactly insignificant,
Santiago knew, but they would almost certainly take their lead from the
four principals present, plus herself.  Several were members of the
"new" Junta, brought in the last year to replace others who had died -
like Burge or Atriedes - or who had resigned or left - like Googlie and
Rice Aguilera - or to fill command slots necessary in a vastly expanded
Spartan Military.


"We shall review our current data in an orderly fashion.  Marshall
Wang, begin."


Hui Wang stood in response to Santiago's order.


"We recovered and debriefed the last known surviving member of the garrison
of Hero's Waypoint, a soldier known as 'Watcher'.  His commander entrusted
him with the task of observing and reporting the alien attack, since communications
links were down. As you can see from the following recordings, combat,
once initiated, was extremely short.  Simply put, our weapons had
minimal - though not, I stress, unmeasureable - effects on the alien
vehicles' armour.  Their weaponry, however, is far more destructive
than anything we've even conceived.  You'll notice how it seems to
penetrate hardened bunker positions and perimeter defences with no significant
reduction in killing power.  Simply measured, the only defence seems
to simply not be wherever this weapon - which SciDiv calls a 'singularity
laser' - hits."


Data flashed up on the dozens of tactical repeaters in the room, relayed
and analysed in real-time by the Command Nexus supercomputers as Wang continued
his report, and Santiago took the time to assimilate the data before pointing
to her Science Minister.


Doctor Alison Bonaventura stood.  A physically unimposing woman,
Bonaventura possessed a first-class mind, and was one of the few Spartan
scientists who had possessed a genuine, grudging respect from the old-guard
University researchers.


"We're calling this beam a singularity laser based on data obtained
from our mass sensors, actually - they were fluctuating each time the weapon
was fired, similar in response to our own experiments with graviton weaponry. 
We never developed graviton weapons ourselves, of course, because Shard
weaponry was simpler to produce and has a greater destructive potential
with current technology constraints.  Where the alien weapon differs,
we speculate, is that the gravometric pulse creates multiple standing
wave patterns of slightly different frequencies and phases, and these patterns
intersect at a specific point.  The result seems to be nothing less
than a short-duration singularity created at the target zone."


"Jesus Christ," someone muttered, and for all her military discipline,
Santiago couldn't help but share the sentiment.  As if anticipating
her next question, Bonaventura continued.


"We cannot, as yet, accurately give an assessment of this weapon's battle
potential.  Too much depends on range and recharge time.  However,
as Marshal Wang pointed out, whatever - or whoever - is the target of this
weapon, is dead, regardless of any armour or reactor type we have currently
developed."


"We have better assessments of the hostiles' defensive capabilities,
however.  Clearly, our weaponry had some minimal effect upon it, although
far less than upon any current human technology.  It's orders of magnitude
more powerful than familiar physical armour combinations such as silk or
plasma steel, and more even than the resonance armour that Admiral McMillan's
fleet encountered.  We've had more time to study the defensive capabilities
of the aliens, ever since our first encounter by Argonaut squadron. 
Massive amounts of conventional Shard weaponry should, in theory, be able
to overload the defensive field.  All that energy has to go somewhere,
after all, and the aliens haven't been able to overcome the basic laws
of thermodynamics.  We think."  Bonaventura permitted herself
a grim smile.


"Finally, the aliens appear to be using a new reactor type of a sort
we've never even heard of.  All our mass / energy engineering rules
tell us that it is simply impossible for the aliens to power a craft
that large, with offensive and defensive capabilities so vast, on any known
or even hypothesized reactor type.   Given the deep radar density
readings of these vehicles - which by the way are off the scale - we're
theorizing that the aliens are somehow able harnessing an artificial black
hole on a vehicle-portable scale."


"Impossible."  General Honshu spoke for the first time.  Unlike
most of the other members of the Junta, Honshu had a strong second-hand
scientific background provided by his staff.  That made a certain
amount of sense, given his role in the University wars, and his deployment
in the former UoP bases.


"Unfortunately, no-one has told the aliens that what they're
doing is impossible."  Bonaventura shrugged, and Honshu flashed a
dangerous look in the Science Minister's direction.  Bonaventura was
too habitually unaware of her real-life surroundings to take notice; no-one
would sanely risk angering the Junta's chief enforcer otherwise. 
Fortunately, Honshu was signalled to speak next by Santiago.


"General Honshu - brief us on our defensive positions."


Honshu rose and directed the main plots from the Command Nexus.


"The aliens have taken both Hero's Waypoint and Janissary Point, and
eliminated all local resistance.  I need not point out that this puts
them almost within striking distance of Sparta Command itself.  To
prevent the communications blackout effect that Hero's Waypoint experienced,
I've installed redundant fibre-optic links to link all bases and bunkers
into the Command Nexus.  Meanwhile, several of Sparta Command's on-standby
military units - infantry and artillery - have gone out and occupied the
Eastguard bunker position, which gives us some defensive depth.  They've
come under only limited fire - the alien units appear to have retreated
back to Hero's Waypoint rather than risk air strikes in the open. 
We have also used drop troops to occupy the bunker position between Hero's
Waypoint and Janissary Point, to keep the aliens divided into two forces. 
Given their reported ability to do orbital re-insertions, however, I am
not sure that we will be able to maintain that division.  As for Sparta
Command itself, my Militia was in position to reinforce our position here
via drop insertion, so I plan to use them to replace the units now occupying
Eastguard.  As a precaution, I've also placed garrisons in Westguard
and certain other bunker positions, to prevent the enemy from literally
dropping in and cutting us off."


Honshu looked around in quiet satisfaction, noting that a number of
heads
were nodding approvingly and in some relief.  It didn't hurt Honshu's
plans in the least for the Junta to see that the only productive and decisive
actions thus far had been instigated by himself and not St-James...
or Santiago.  Time to capitalize on that, but just a little bit
right now.  I'm cocking the hammer before I pull the trigger,
Honshu thought before adding,


"Beyond that, I really cannot say.  The majority of our mobile
forces that might be used for a quick counter-offensive are currently under
General St-James' command," Honshu added, before bowing to yield the floor
to St-James in false humility.


You son of a *****, you know damn well they're still in the process
of assembly and upgrade, the Gecko thought as he stood.


"We're quite truthfully not prepared for a counter-offensive as yet. 
Given the aliens' unknown capabilities and numbers - since they are using
drop reinforcements - our current strategic position is and remains twofold. 
One, to damage the aliens' strategic infrastructure where possible
- in essence, hurting their core capabilities harder and faster
than they can hurt us.  Two, to draw out the enemies' units and slowly
attrit them, essentially using skirmish hit-and-fade tactics."


"Excuse me, Salvadore."  For the first time, Xavier Bisset put
a thin hand up, and St-James looked a bit surprised, but nodded to the
old man with genuine respect.


"Your strategic position - which I've been given to understand was formulated
before the invasion of Spartan soil, and comprises the majority of our
best units - is geared towards an offensive posture on enemy soil, or allied
bases in Morganic territory, correct?  That doesn't answer the question
as to how you intend defend the Homeland."


Santiago caught Gecko's eye and nodded almost imperceptibly, before
speaking up herself.


"Our strategic posture, Xavier, is to deploy dispersed units, slowing
the enemy down in the field, and looking for high-reward opportunities
to counter-attack.  If they attempt to outflank us, we cut off their
flanking forces and then destroy the isolated units.  If they attempt
reconnaissance missions, we pick off their scouts.  And above all,
we look for opportunity targets - military or strategic.  We don't
want to get bogged down into a defensive war, and lose sight of the greater
military theatre."  Santiago explained.


"Too passive."  Bisset pronounced flatly, startling many of the
Junta, including Santiago herself.  St-James, however, happened to
have been looking at Honshu, and stiffened in his chair.  The bastard
had definitely smirked for a moment when Bisset had spoken.


"The Homeland is in danger.  What will you do if they launch a
frontal assault on our more important bases?  Or attack Sparta Command
itself?  The correct way to deal with this threat is a strategy of
stand-and-defend, supplemented by appropriate AAA weaponry, sensors, perimeter
defences, and the like.  In sufficient numbers of course, not as individual
units being overwhelmed like at Hero's Waypoint and Janissary Rock. 
We determine the disposition of the enemy's forces, determine his target,
and then break his back.  After his main battle force is shattered,
we can hunt down and destroy the survivors - just as the aliens are doing
right
now to our civilians!"  Bisset said with cold anger.  Several
of the Junta were nodding.


Santiago took a moment to consider her response to Bisset's unexpected
opposition.  Never a politician however, her response was equally
flat - and undiplomatic, if factual.


"I'm aware of what's happening, Xavier.  However, in response to
your question - if they come after our bases directly, we lose them - including
Sparta Command.  Oh, we can draw it out, but to stand and defend
against that kind of weaponry is suicide.  The aliens have clearly
come here expecting, and presumably prepared for, direct head-on battle. 
Hell, they're even asking us to confront them directly with this
'challenge' of theirs.  I do not intend to oblige them."


Salvadore St-James, meanwhile, was paying close attention to the various
Junta members' expressions.  He agreed with Corrie's assessment -
he'd even had sounded out the basic strategy with Googlie, without Santiago's
knowledge and approval, and Googlie agreed too. But that didn't change
the fact that a lot of the Junta were very uncomfortable with the
idea of  losing bases - especially Sparta Command! - to a concentrated
alien assault.  It was simply unthinkable; Sparta hadn't lost a single
base to military assault in the Hive war, and Sparta Command had been inviolable
and 'safe' for a hundred and twenty-eight years since Landing.  For
all their collective military wisdom, too many of the Junta were too hide-bound
to be able to accept the bitter pill that for once, the superiour weight
of arms was clearly on the enemy's side, and the only way to beat
them would be to accept that fact and adapt a more flexible strategy. 
Chapter Two of the Spartan Battle Manual.  But Xavier Bisset should've
known better; how the hell did Honshu get the old fossil into his
camp?


Xavier hasn't seen modern battle.  The thought came unbidden
to St-James' mind, and he nodded to himself.  Same with Honshu, in
fact.  Both were veterans of the University war, but that was a very
different type of war.  When defending against impact and missile
weapons, a static defence of plasma steel backed by defensive terrain such
as forest or mountains and sensors was a viable defence.  That'd worked
well in the University war - but against modern weaponry, the balance clearly
sided with the aggressor in almost all scenarios.  Hell, Sparta had
proved
that by blowing the Hive out of its bunkers.  But Xavier Bisset had
been in cryosleep for most of all that.  Honshu, though... his "militia"
hadn't been on the front, but Honshu was at least aware of what was going
on.  Did he have a card up his sleeve?  Or was this just a bid
to unseat Corrie?


"With respect, I agree with Bisset."  Honshu announced, throwing
down the glove in earnest.  This was the moment he'd been preparing
for for years, finally seeing the chance for it to culminate when Googlie
had ineptly managed to disgrace himself, and Burge and Atriedes had gotten
themselves killed.  That young fool Amos Cornell who'd rebelled in
the early days of the Spartan Federation hadn't understood that to unseat
Santiago, one needed the backing of the Junta.  And now he
had the tools to turn the Junta against Santiago.


"This policy of 'non-engagement' is something that might be appropriate
to the Peacekeepers, but not to Sparta.  And the fact is, the force
dispersement of Task Force X was designed to try to cover our 'allies',
the Morganites and the Drone Believers.  But we are not the
Peacekeepers, nannies to the other factions. We are Sparta, and we must
look to our own needs first.  This entire conflict with the
Hive could have been ended earlier, leaving our forces in better shape,
and not forcing Yang into alliance with the aliens.  However, I grant
that this is in the past.  Now, however, we need to pull back
our forces, concentrate on core offence / defence, and drive these aliens
out of our territory!  If I had these forces at my disposal, I could
end this invasion within the month."


Honshu noted with some satisfaction that Corazon's face had, momentarily,
gone white with fear as she suddenly became aware of the challenge.


He was wrong, however - Corazon's face had gone white, but with
anger not fear.  Right now, Spartan soldiers and civilians were fighting
bravely, were dying to buy precious time for Sparta to organize
its defences.  And this... cretino was pissing that away with
his power play!  Gecko had tried to warn her, subtly - but she'd dismissed
it as simply bad feelings between Gecko and Honshu.  Well, now she
knew better.  Honshu had revealed himself for the enemy he was - not
just to Santiago, but to the Federation; for the Federation could never
allow itself to be a tool of mere political ambition.


True, Santiago was a lousy politician.  But when confronted with
a known enemy, she was a superb tactician - and she never lost her
cool in battle.


"General Honshu.  I respect your position, and skills.  Legitimate
differences of opinion are inevitable.  But we are a military organization,
with a defined chain of command.  Furthermore, our homeland is being
invaded.  We must not allow differences in opinion to divide us at
such a critical time, and we must speak with one voice."


"Madame President, I agree that now is not the time to seek division
within the Junta, and that the Junta must speak with one voice," Honshu
said cooly before continuing.


"Your service to Sparta was and is invaluable, but I respectfully submit
that you do cannot speak for the Junta now.  Instead, let the Junta
decide who speaks for us all."  Honshu turned to address his fellow
officers.


"I do not discount the Colonel's views lightly, but I believe we need
not compromise in our defence.  Indeed, I have recently been briefed
on a new defensive technology that our scientists have developed, called
the 'Photon Wall'.  While wide-scale refit is beyond our means, I
have already taken the liberty of preparing my Militia for prototype upgrade,
and they are ready to do so in defence of Sparta Command if the energy
cost is authorized."


There was a sudden hubbub and Honshu smiled to himself as he pulled
another trick out of his bag; nothing could revitalize the Junta like the
offer of a promising new technology, one that could allow his loyal
units to defend the headquarters.  It was time to make his final pitch.


"Members of the Junta, I offer myself as an alternate candidate to Corazon
Santiago for supreme military leader.  My pledge is to defend the
Federation unswervingly."


He's good, I have to give him that.  A nice speech, a promise
to defend what no-one here wants to think about losing, and a new tech
that I've never heard about - and I bet Corrie hasn't either.  Probably
something that he got last year out of those UoP researchers and sat on
until now.  Gecko thought, before standing himself.


"Members of the Junta.  I recognize that we are at a time of crisis,
and a time of decision.  But I submit to you that now is not
the time to uproot our command structure.  I can tell you that the
Colonel and myself have planned for many weeks now how best to fight the
aliens and win.  Not just the battles, but the war.  Like
General Honshu, I am Spartan, and I will die for Sparta.  But because
I am Spartan, I will do everything in my power to win... and that includes
my voting to retain Corazon Santiago as Supreme Commander-in-Chief."


There.  He'd just laid all his personal credibility on the line
to support Corrie, and like she'd told him, the Gecko had a lot of credibility,
precisely because the Junta knew he wasn't politically ambitious. 
But then, neither was Xavier Bisset.  Would it be enough?  He
damned well hoped so, because if Honshu won and Santiago was ousted, the
Gecko knew he'd be demoted - or more likely 'disappeared' - within the
week.  In fact, even now Honshu had caught his eye and was shaking
his head slowly, even sorrowfully.


So.  The challenge has been presented, Corazon Santiago
thought while a still, unbroken silence reigned over the Strategic Planning
Centre.  She could refuse to allow the vote, of course - but that
would lead to command division, maybe even civil war.  And then she
remembered another famous general, faced with a similar dilemma.


Let the dice fall where they may, Santiago thought, quoting Gaius
Julius Caesar.  She carefully placed the ancient ceremonial
sword on her blotter, and pushed the blotter away from her.


"I call for the Junta's votes."


St-James stood first.  "Santiago."


Field Marshal Hui Wang stood next.  "Honshu."


Bonaventura hesitated, then spoke.  "Santiago."


But the next three votes, including generals Lockhard and O'Brien, were
for Honshu.  It was now Xavier Bisset's turn, and while the old man
didn't hesitate in indecision, at least he looked Santiago in the eye with
a silent gesture of respect for times past.


"Honshu."


The votes continued.  Two more for Honshu.


Ben "Slats" Miller voted next.  "Santiago."  Now that
was a surprise, Corazon thought.


Patricia "Trawler" McMillan stood.  "Santiago."


What the hell?  Both Miller and McMillan were in Googlie's
camp, when he was still a member of the Junta.  Santiago's gaze
slid to the left, and her eyes widened slightly, for Honshu's face had
whitened.  Clearly he was just as surprised as Santiago, but unlike
her, far less pleased at the surprise.


Colonel Eugene Levassieur, the base commander for Hawk of Chiron, cast
his vote.  So did Helen Tobias, from Assassin's Redoubt.  "Santiago."


Honshu was a controlled man, and the only indication of his rage now
was in the whiteness of his knuckles.  His head turned to look at
Santiago, but she was as surprised as he... and then he understood, as
he looked now at St-James.  The Gecko returned his gaze with his trademark
unblinking stare, and Honshu nodded once in respect for a clever enemy.


"The votes are cast," Santiago finally announced when everyone had spoken. 
"Honshu has ten.  Santiago has thirteen."


"A moment, Colonel."  Bisset spoke with a voice of liquid helium. 
"This count stands, but in the interests of a united Sparta, I wish to
withdraw my vote and instead call upon all of us to endorse Colonel Santiago
unanimously."


Santiago met Bisset's eyes.  It was a fair gesture.  Bisset
always
voted for what he perceived as the best interests of Sparta, and she'd
always respected that.  He had disagreed with her, but  now would
follow her leadership to the best of his ability, Santiago knew. 
Sparta was too important for this political division to remain, and Bisset's
offer neatly reversed all remaining support for Honshu, and any notion
of a possible coup.  Bisset's motion had not been for her, but for
the good of Sparta.


"Very well.  As chairperson, I withdraw the previous motion for
selection of Supreme Commander, and instead call upon a vote of confidence. 
All in favour?"


Twenty-three hands lifted, and even though his left hand was fisted
underneath the table in impotent rage, Honshu's right hand raised with
everyone else's.  He had no choice, after all.

[senatus]

Sea Hive


Cyrus Peake was a talented general, but still young in many ways...
at least by Sheng-Ji Yang's standards.  Peake had not yet learned
to truly control his expressions and the emotions behind them.


Ah, well.  One must make allowances for the young, 
Sheng-Ji thought tolerantly, for he was in a very good mood - not that
Yang's mood ever dictated his own course of actions.  Of course he
was in a good mood; for his newest and bravest general was presenting excellent
news.  Yang could read Cyrus' face like an open book.  What he
saw was patriotism, devotion to duty, earnest enthusiasm for the victories
of the Hive.  In short, all the ideal qualities a Hiverian citizen
learned from the crèche to recycling tanks. the self of group.


"Honoured Chairman.  I am pleased to report that we have achieved
all of our mission objectives for Phase One.  Hive drop troops have
liberated, in the name of the Hive, the former Gaian base of Temple of
Chiron; and our needlejets are now able to use the airstrip facilities. 
We have cleared a hundred-kilometer radius surrounding the Progenitor monolith,
securing our ability to receive reinforcements, or to retreat if necessary
- although that would be an unlikely occurrence.  The premiere Gaian
base of Velvetgrass Point is still in enemy hands, but we have encountered
only minimal resistance in securing our current perimeter.  I would
like to commend the Bureau of State Security's intelligence arm; as predicted,
the Gaians' defence forces field obsolete technology by Hiverian standards,
and their morale is poor.  Their citizens have no desire to die defending
the elitist and socially unprogressive policies of Dierdre Skye and her
governors."


"You have done well, General, as expected.  Have you defeated any
hostile mindworm boils as yet?"  Yang asked.


"We have encountered no mindworms whatsoever, as yet," Peake admitted. 
"But I'm confident the two empath and two trance units allocated to the
liberation of Velvetgrass Point, if we go for option Phase Two B, will
be more than enough to deal with the daemon boil reported to reside at
Velvetgrass, and any of its hatchlings.  According to my brief from
the Bureau of State Security, all of the Gaian mindworms are busy defending
the plutocrat Morgan's territory.  The best enemy tech we've seen
is missile / fission, and that presents no significant resistance."


"I am gladdened that our resources will not be consumed in this invasion,"
Yang acknowledged.  "But I wish to offer our allies the glory of conquest
that their society craves by inviting them to take Velvetgrass Point for
themselves.  Our forces will continue in the less glorious, but still
essential task of garrisoning the monolith, and securing this 'Manifold
Nexus' for the aliens.  You will communicate this intent to Stochastic
Canla," Yang ordered, knowing well the aliens would relish the opportunity
to conquer an enemy, and disdained the assistance of the "primitive" Human
Hive.  So much the better.


"As my Chairman wishes," Peake bowed, trying to conceal his disappointment. 
He knew his capabilities and those of his elite troops, and had hoped to
demonstrate their devotion to the Hive for Yang.  Why deploy the Hive's
best, only elite shard units so, when simple chaos units would've done
the task equally well then?


"Do not be disappointed, young Cyrus," Yang said, reading Peake's thoughts
easily.  "We do not seek individual glory for any general or any army
unit; only the advancement of the Hive itself.  And it suits our diplomatic
stance with our allies as well.  And as I stated, securing monolith
and the Manifold Nexus is a critical strategic objective," perhaps far
more critical than you can realize, my young general, Yang thought
but did not say.


"To that end, I will be sending Ota Kyu to assist and advise you. 
Her task is to research the Nexus until the Progenitors have achieved their
victories," or, perhaps, sated their bloodlust, Yang thought with
a certain distaste that did not show in his voice or on his face.


"Those are your sole objectives at this point," Yang concluded. 
"The Hive relies upon you.  Please inform your officers and soldiers
that they serve the Hive most satisfactorily."


"As you wish, honoured Chairman.  We serve the Hive."  Peake
saluted, and the link ended.


Sheng-Ji Yang steepled his fingers and contemplated the space where
Peake's holo-image had been a moment ago.  A most talented general. 
Dedicated, and capable.  Should I tell him more?  But no, it
would serve no purpose as yet, and all I see right now are possibilities,
not patterns.


Yang was extremely pleased with the invasion concept, which had come
to him months ago in a meditative revelation.  It served his purposes
extremely well - purposes, as yet, that he had not shared fully with anyone,
not even - or most especially - Haraad Ashandii.  He knew that his
lieutenant wondered about the value of conducting the invasion, for their
were no military or strategic objectives to be fulfilled in depriving Dierdre
Skye of her pitiful few bases.  Well, that was certainly true. 
But there were other, unstated objectives, Yang thought to himself.


For one, it allowed Yang to demonstrate to Conqueror Marr that the Hive
was committed to the alliance, and was prepared to assist militarily. 
The fact that the target had been carefully chosen as the most insignificant
Axis faction,  and least likely to cost the Hive casualties, had no
doubt escaped the glorious Conqueror.  In the best case scenario,
the Gaians would actually be stronger than anticipated, and their human
and mindworm defenders would cause the inexperienced Canla unexpected casualties. 
And even if they didn't, by then Cyrus Peake would have secured the monolith
and
the Manifold Nexus, with the best troops that the Hive possessed. 
If it became necessary, they would be more than enough to eliminate the
Usurper forces under Canla; and by controlling the monolith, only Hive
reinforcements would be able to arrive.  And the mysterious Manifold
would be under Yang's control.  The Chairman didn't know exactly what
it could do, but he was certain that Marr had his own plans and secrets
- and Yang suspected strongly that the Human Hive - or, for that matter,
the human race - weren't part of those long-term goals.  Which
was why it was important for Yang to begin planning now for... a
change in the relationship between the Human Hive and the Manifold Usurpers.


And in the worst case?  Yang thought, covering all possibilities
in his mind.  Then the Gaians would somehow be far more powerful than
anyone had imagined, perhaps with several greater boils to command. 
Unlikely, of course, but it was possible.  Dierdre might not've
demonstrated such capabilities due to her squeamish pacifism.  But
even then, all that would happen would be the destruction of Cyrus Peake
and his forces.  The Hive itself would be safe.  It would be
a great shame to lose this young, talented general, of course - but for
the greater good of the Human Hive, even the best individuals had to be
sometimes sacrificed.

[senatus]

Former Spartan Base of Hero's Waypoint


Erika Winters felt a terrible, trapped fear; and unlike so many fears,
this was a rational one.

She was going to die, soon.

Yet she was not terrified.  Was it was because she was born and
raised a Spartan?  Or because the alien attack had been so sudden,
so complete, that she hadn't had the chance yet?

Last week she'd been a healthy, normal teenaged daughter of the base's
assistant governer, with normal teenaged concerns.  Who was "in". 
Who was "out".  What boys were cool.  How her hair looked. 
How school was a pain.

Last week the aliens had come, eradicating the base's defence in minutes,
overrunning the escaping populace.  Erika remembered the screams in
her escaping colony pod.  She remembered the monstrous aliens killing
everyone in their path.  She remembered her school teacher, Mrs. Hastings,
pulling a shredder from her backpack, only to watch the weapon have no
effect on the alien foot soldiers' battle armour.  And then Mrs. Hastings
had been torn to shreds by the creatures.

She was just a teenager.  Too young to die!

---

 Conquerer Zzar was lost deep in thought, in contrast
to his brethern celebrating and feasting in the halls of the Invaders'
former base.

He'd been led to believe that these Spartans had been the elite of
the squishy self-named Humans.  Yet the conquest of their base had
been absurdly easy, their weapons puny and inconsequential.  Their
resistance had been futile.

And yet... and yet, they had resisted.  Even though they
must've known they had no chance, and by Usurper tradition, should have
bowed and exposed their throats in submission, awaiting the ritual execution.

"We can expect no more of them.  They are primitives, fit only
for bodily consumption,"  his underling Nir had resonated dismissively
as he feasted on the corpse of a Spartan soldier.  Nir had no doubts;
this is what the ancestors had always taught.  And so Zzar should
also have no questions.

Yet he still did.  And why not?  Was not the entire Usurper
philosophy based on the Courage to Question?

So Zzar decided to arrange a test.

---

Erika Winters was dumped naked into the circular arena that had hosted
Spartan wrestling matches only a week ago.  It was cold, and she would've
shivered, had she not forced her body to betray no signs that could look
like fear.

This was it, Spartan Civil Defence Cadet Winters knew.  In the
past day or so (she didn't know the exact passage of time, since the monsters
had stripped her of all equipment), Erika had come to recognize the

inevitability of her fate.  Like her father, her mother, and her
baby brother, Erika would be slain by the aliens.  Probably eaten,
too, from what she'd seen when the 3-metre nightmares had dragged her to
the arena.

But she was a Spartan.

When Erika had been seven, she'd met the Colonel personally, as the
daughter of one of the governers appointed by the Junta.  Santiago
had frightened her, and she had hidden behind her embarrassed father.

"Come out, girl!"  The woman had snapped, and Erika had unwillingly
done so in response to the Supreme Leader's command.

"A Spartan does not cower, child.  Fear can be wisdom; hiding
can be tactics.  But always face your opposition proudly.  You
are a child of Sparta."

In any faction but the Spartan Federation, that message would've been
considered brutally militant to a seven-year-old.  But Sparta had
a different mentality; from creche to tanks, all Spartans were taught that
life was a struggle for survival, and only the fittest could guarantee
the future of humanity.  Hence, each and every Spartan civilian, from
the age of twelve onwards, was a member of the Civil Defence.  And
children were taught how to fight, and how to think about fighting,
from the day they could read.

Erika now recognized the truth; for all that remained to her now was
honour - and death.  But as a Spartan.  She would die, of course,
but die on her feet.  A bitter, forlorn pride and determination washed
away the tremors in her body, the fear in her mind.

Ignoring the watching aliens circled in the stands above, she began
to limber up.  Work the ankles, the calves, the hips.  Begin
the Heaven and Earth exercise, reaching up and inhaling, grasping at the
air, then exhaling and pushing the air to the ground.  Now, a series
of breakfalls.  One.  Ten.  Thirty.  As Erika continued
the exercises she'd been taught and practiced weekly, her mind settled
into the familiar pattern.

Zzar entered the Invaders' challenge chamber opposite door, just as
he'd done so long ago when he'd killed his first invader.  By his
command, this one was as close a match as could be found to the other -
a female, adolescent human.  From his previous experience, he knew
that the other was no match for him physically; less than half his height
and a third his body mass, with no carapice to protect her or claws to
strike with.  He was more curious, however, as to whether the mentality
was the same amongst all the invaders.  From what he knew, they had
to rely on primitive methods of teaching rather than DNA/RNA recording,
and as such, might be distressingly non-uniform.

Erika rose to her feat as the alien entered, and studied it warily. 
She quickly came to the same conclusions that Zzar had.  She had almost
no chance against this thing, without weapons.

Zzar waited for the female youngling to run around sub-resonating like
the first had, but the invader seemed disinclined to do anything other
than watch him.  Did it not realize that it was about to die? 
Could it be that confused?  Seeing that it still didn't move, he raised
his claws and advanced with careful confidence.

Bigger strides than mine, Erika thought to herself.  I probably
can't exhaust it, but it doesn't know that I've guessed that.  Maybe
a feint?

Zzar accelerated towards his opponent, and to his gratification, she
finally moved, sprinting aside from his reach.  He stopped, but then
the invader stopped as well, just outside of lunging distance, rather than
continuing to flee and exhausting herself like the other.

Erika continued to wait herself, studying the alien as it studied her
in turn.

It's bigger than me, and it's armoured.  That might mean a fair
bit of momentum and inertia.  What is my advantage?  Mobility.

Zzar took a measured step forward, slashing a claw at half his normal
speed, seeing if it could spook his opponent.

Those claws look deadly.  But it's obviously evolved to fight
others of its kind - and I'm not 3 metres tall.  If I keep nice and
low, it'll have a harder time reaching me.  It's armoured - but that
means it limbs will be more rigid.  What is my advantage?  Flexibility.

Erika lowered her body position, each arm bent and at her side in classic
Karate stance.

Zzar felt a sudden understanding and gratification.  The pose
the alien had assumed was different from his own, of course, due to differences
in physiology.  But the positioning of its limbs and striking manipulators
to either side for maximum efficiency was clearly the equivalent of his
own stance.  This creature was not like that first human. 
She, like him, was a young warrior.

Erika moved a few more steps backward, carefully watching for telltale
shifts in the enemy's posture, as Zzar matched her movements.

If I can see the pattern in how it has to shift its body weight to
move, I can figure out where it's going to go.  Take Initiative,
Erika thought, and shifted her eyes from the creature's head to its thorax,
where the centre of gravity was.

Erika turned and ran four paces, then hairpinned back towards the alien.

"Hai!" She yelled, and launched herself into a flying kick at
the alien's abdomen.  Zzar slashed at her just as her foot connected.

The impact was negligable, barely enough to even shift Zzar, and certainly
not sufficient to damage his armour-protected internal organs.

Erika saw that the claw was going to hit her, and she shifted her left
arm to intercept the swinging arm of the alien, so that she was blocking
the armoured limb rather than the sharp edge.  Had she been standing,
the force of the impact would've broken her arm; since she was in midair,
it merely threw her to the side.  She landed, rolled, and came to
her feet again.

She'd come off the worse for that encounter - her arm was numb while
the alien was obviously uninjured - but she'd obtained important intelligence. 
She had a measure of the creature's speed, and knew that the carapice was
too hard to penetrate.

"When unarmed, and facing an armoured opponent, go for the joints. 
Bend them where they're not supposed to go," the Civil Defence Instructor
had told the trainees.

Zzar shifted to face his opponent.  To counter the unlikely possibility
of being knocked off balance - which would be most embarrassing in front
of his peers - he shifted his legs apart.

Which is what Erika was waiting for.  She lept towards him, and
rolled between Zzar's legs, beneath the viscious swipe of his claws. 
As she came past, she turned, and struck with all her might into the back
of

his "knee" joint.  As the alien stumbled, she moved to the side
and launched a flurry of blows onto Zzar's elbow, and started to jump back
to avoid the swing of his other arm.

Erika hadn't considered that Zzar's tusks could also be deadly weapons,
however.  It was with a sudden shocked surprise that she felt a piercing
pain in her shoulder, and looked down to see that she was

impaled on him.  Zzar snapped his head up, tearing free, and arterial
blood spattered his face and mouth.

"Choke... on... it," Erika gasped with her dying breath, as her left
hand arrowed forward, her fingers spiked forward to reach for Zzar's eye
sockets.  Zzar's other claw finally connected, and tore the Spartan
girl's head off.

Zzar perceived a muted buzzing resonance in the audience; they were
amused by the futile resistance, and death, of the human.

Zzar felt a moment of white, burning anger.

"Silence!"  He shouted.

"This creature fought well, to the best of its ability.  It fought
with the courage of a Progenitor.  No mockery is acceptable."

There was an embarrassed silence amongst the Usurper warriors. 
Zzar could almost hear the thoughts turning in their minds.  Of
course he, Zzar, would be angry; for by mocking the enemy, they were effectively
belittling his triumph, as one-sided and inevitable as this challenge had
been.  And no-one here wanted to offend - or challenge - Marr's
current favorite.

They were fools.

Of course the combat was one-sided and inevitable, and no challenge
even compared to the feeblest of a Usurper warrior.  But that wasn't
the point.  This slain human warrior - for a minute, Zzar wished he'd
known her name - had fought not just with the courage of a Usurper, but
with the tenacity of a Caretaker - irreverant as a juxtaposition with the
Ancient Foe was, it was nonetheless appropriate.  Moreover, while
its methods were pathetically ineffective, they had been the most
optimum available to it.

Just because Zzar couldn't have fought an Ogre bare-tusked, didn't
make him less worthwhile - or dangerous - a warrior.  And just as
the human hadn't had a chance against him, this Spartan female had nevertheless
fought as well as - or better - than he would've, had the situation been
reversed.  If warrior mentality was truly important, then these Spartans
might be much more dangerous than anyone realized.

Zzar suddenly realized he had no hope of convincing any of his race,
or his Personalities, of his hypothesis.  Who would listen to his
thoughts, when everything their Ancients had bequeathed to them, taught
them otherwise?

Zzar squatted, and began to consume a worthy enemy.
[This message has been edited by senatus (edited April 16, 2001).]

[senatus]

Great Conclave, Covert Missionary Operations Planning Centre


"Good morning, everybody.  I'm Sister Jessica McCollough, and today
I'm going to be briefing you all on our first major covert mission: Operation
Raging Mouse."


Jessica stood easily behind the podium, and methodically brought out
her datapad and placed it on the plastic surface in front of her. 
She looked for all the world like a regular Believer minister conducting
an ordinary sermon at the pulpit, Sven thought.  Although the familiar
image would probably seem perfectly normal to her "congregation" - fourteen
of the best trained, most dedicated probe team operatives - also known
as "covert missionaries" - in the business.


Oh, the Morgans have much more practical experience - and better tech,
of course - but Team Matthew and Team Mark were, in Sven's estimation,
certainly up to the standards that the Morganic Corporate Intelligence
Agency set, and probably more personally dedicated.  Of course,
maybe that's just pride, since I trained them all myself, Sven thought
as Jessica introduced herself and began the mission overview, which he
was already very familiar with.  Still, he should set an example,
so the cyborg focused his attention on the young woman.


"Our strategic, or political objective, is to infiltrate the Hive at
New Jerusalem, also known as The Leader's Horde, and to raise awareness
in the general populace about the ideals held by the Drone Believers. 
We chose this base because it is nearby, because it was a former base of
the old Lord's Believers, and because it has military significance due
to the Maritime Control Centre."


"Now you all know that the strategic objectives will be complicated
by the Hive's social structure.  The Mental Hygiene Police monitors
all activities of the population, in the communal rest halls, the feeding
vats, even the washrooms.  Hive citizens are taught to suppress all
expressions of individuality.  Anything that is seen to promote individuality
- different clothes, different haircuts, even possession of individual
wealth or property - is discouraged.  Needless to say this has greatly
negative effects on the Hive's economy, but the Hive has always promoted
industry over economy any ways.  It also means that the average citizen
is loyal to the Hive, partly due to fear, and partly due to lifelong brainwashing. 
When the Bureau of Mental Hygiene instructs their citizens that listening
to Silvermane's broadcasts is treason to the State, 99% of them do what
they are told.  Our goal is to reach the remaining 1% and to build
up that number by educating the citizens that there is something to existence
other than what the Bureau tells them.  Yes, Captain Michaels, you
have a question?"


Benjamin Michaels looked a little startled.  He did have
a question, but hadn't realized that his hand was up.  Wait, it wasn't
up... oh, right.  Sister McCollough was an empath.  Well, he'd
had experience with empath compellors in the Spartan Inquisition affair,
and it was nice to have one on our side for a change.


"Yes, Sister McCollough.  Is Silvermane one of our people?"


Jessica looked thoughtful.  "No, actually, he isn't.  He seems
to prefer remaining anonymous, and since our interests coincide, we haven't
put a priority on tracking him down.  But we probably should make
contact with him," Jessica said, and a note appeared on her datapad, translated
from conscious thought via her MMI.  She'd send out a virtual broadcast
to Silvermane via the net - assuming he was connected - and invite him
to contact her, in person or in VR.  The fellow might very well have
some useful contacts, and perhaps she could offer a favour herself. 
As she'd said, Silvermane's goals and her own coincided.


"Now, our mission objectives are as follows.  Team Matthew will
enter The Leader's Horde first.  Matthew's primary mission is to eliminate
any opposing probe resistance.  If there is no resistance, or Matthew
sustains minimal casualties, then they will move on to their secondary
objective, which is the destruction of the Genejack factory, where those
abominations are created.  I will note that the rumour that some of
the genejacks were in fact Believer children with their brains surgically
removed and their bodies physically enhanced by retrogenetics is, in fact,
true."  Jessica's face was grim, as were the others present. 
"Sven Alfredsson will lead Team Matthew."


"Team Mark will enter The Leader's Horde only after Team Matthew signals
that the path is clear.  Mark will go to the Punishment Spheres and
liberate all the prisoners.  They won't be coming back with us - too
dangerous to try to bring untrained civilians all the way back here - but
Team Mark will have a set of data crystals that I have programmed. 
The programs will enter the Hive's population database, and will create
false identities for these individuals, so that they can at least hide
within the general populace.  This will have two effects.  First,
the destruction of the punishment spheres will remove one of the tools
that the Mental Hygiene Police use to keep the drones in check, thereby
increasing unrest.  Second, the liberated prisoners will be sympathetic
to the cause of the Drone Believers, and we can use them to observe and
gather information.  Rather than just infiltrating Yang's datalinks,
we'll be infiltrating his society - which is far more useful to
us, and dangerous to him.  We'll also be distributing electronic bibles
and ideological material to the escapees."


"I will be leading Team Mark," Jessica said, surprising Sven. 
She hadn't mentioned it before, and he frowned.  Jessica was a good
planner and analyst, but he didn't know if she how capable she was in the
field.  Still, best to talk to her after the briefing.


"Now, we'll be training for the insert and operations via VR. 
We'll also need to get you all haircuts and drill you into fitting within
the Acceptable Variable Parameters for Hive citizens.  I've ordered
the latest stealth suit technology from Morgan Industries - we have a special
relationship with their CIA - and anything else they feel willing to sell
us.  Weaponry selection and planning team delivery will be handled
by Sven."  Jessica stepped aside to make way for the big Swede.


"We'll be using laser weapons.  They're easily concealable, silent,
and can be tuned outside the visible spectrum, making them excellent covert
ops weapons.  They won't be much good against regular military units,
of course, but we're not planning on tangling with them directly - if that
ever happens, the operation is blown anyway.  I want everyone to update
their marksmanship on the range from now until the operation.  As
for delivery, we'll use drop insertion, and our arrival will be masked
by Hammer squadron, doing manoeuvres near The Leader's Horde.  Sister
Jessica has prepared an excellent set of schematics for the base, as well
as recordings of the accents and prevalent mannerisms.  Those of you
who are less familiar with their society should study them."


The teams nodded, although many of them had been born in the Hive society
before the Free Drones had rebelled.


"Dismissed, then.  We'll reconvene at 16:00."  Sven said.


"So, how do you think that went," Jessica asked a little anxiously after
the "missionaries" had filed out.  She'd projected a confident image,
but this was the first time she'd actually given instructions and orders
like this.


"It went very well.  Except the part about you leading Team Mark,"
Sven said.  "I don't want you going.  Miriam would skin me alive
if something happened to you."


"There's four reasons I want to go," Jessica said.  "First, the
Lord's Believers always sent chaplains with the troops when they
went to battle - and isn't this a battle too?  Second, I programmed
the data crystals.  If we need to improvise, I need to be there."


"Abrahms, Williams, and Simmonds all have computer skills.  They
can do the job."  Sven pointed out.


"Not as well as I can," Jessica said confidently.  "Roze was teaching
me some tricks in her spare time.  I think she likes me, and there's
no better teacher."


"Third, you might need an empath.  Especially if we have the bad
luck to run into a Circle operative.  Yes, I know you've got mechanical
psi shields.  That's good for Team Matthew.  But what about Mark?" 
Jessica pointed out.


"You think you can take on a Circle operative?"  Sven asked a bit
sceptically.  He remembered Kurt's abilities, although he hadn't mentioned
his son to any of the Believers.  He still wasn't quite sure how to
deal with it, and didn't want to test the loyalties yet of a son he'd barely
known.


"I've learned a fair bit from Jay - from one of the Gaian empaths, I
mean," Jessica said quickly.  "I don't think I could beat one of their
big guns, but I honestly think I've got a decent chance against their secondary
members.  Certainly I could hold on long enough for someone to, um,
plug them."


"That's another thing.  You're a minister, not a soldier. 
How would you feel about killing someone?"  Sven challenged.


"I've done it before," Jessica said flatly, and surprising Sven. 
"I don't like it, but I could do it again if I had too."


"Combat training-" Sven began.


"I trained with the Spartans.  Basic training only, but their trainees
are as good as most other factions' hardened troops."  Jessica said.


"Drop operations?  We go in one week, and I don't have enough time
to train you like the others in the time we have left."


"I've never done those, but I'm in shape, and I can practice via VR."


"It's not the same as the real thing," Sven began.


"It is as good as the real thing," Jessica retorted.  "Heck,
in Sparta, they hard-wire the training into their bioenhancement program. 
Graduates know how to do drop jumps instinctively.  When was the last
time you were in VR?"


"I did VR training on old Earth more than a hundred years before you
were born," Sven snapped, getting a bit angry.


"Which is technology more than a hundred years out of date.  The
new programs are completely realistic.  Why, you could be having sex
and not be able to feel the difference," Jessica blurted out without thinking.


Sven couldn't resist a smirk at Jessica's choice of example; he knew
full well that the modern Believers taught abstinence before marriage,
so Jessica almost certainly wasn't talking from personal experience.


And how would you know, Sven thought "aloud", aware that
Jessica might be scanning him.  He wasn't disappointed to see the
Believer minister's face blush bright red.


"Um, according to Datajack Roze.  I haven't personally... I mean...
well, it was just an example!"  Jessica said squirmily, trying hard
now not to think of her "playing the bases" with Jay.


Sven looked at Jessica for a moment, and finally smiled.  Kids,
he thought.


"All right.  Do your VR training, and before we leave, I want to
see you do a drop for real.  If I don't think you're good enough yet,
you stay.  But I'll be fair.  Deal?"  Sven offered, and
Jessica nodded.


"You said you had four reasons for going.  What was the last one?" 
Sven asked after a moment of silence.


Jessica looked serious now.


"I have friends at Velvetgrass Point.  Maybe I can find out something
about what Yang's doing out there.  I know that's a long shot, but
the war's restarted, and I need to do something."


"Fair enough."  Sven nodded.  "Then I'll see you at 15:30,
Sister Jessica."

[Hydro]

Honor: Progenitor aka Hero's Waypoint

"Conqueror Marr has ordered that all Invaders in our prize be eliminated or subdued, and I have ordered you to ensure this is done. Have you succeeded in your task or have you failed me and Conqueror Marr?" Conquer Zzar resonated. He put his body in an aggressive stance with is shield tusks extended, which protected his neck. The results were gratifying: Nir assumed a submissive posture and the thin portions of his carapace flushed blue due to decreased blood flow.

"Conqueror," Nir altered, "it is as you command. There are no free vermin within the Invader city…"

"Progenitor city," Zzar corrected.

"…Progenitor city," Nir said. "Invaders that have been subdued have been placed in holding pens near the excavated Challenge Chamber or feeding bay. Of the 145 score we once held 117 score remain. No large groups of new Invaders have been acquired since the fleeing Invaders were destroyed 12 day-cycles ago."

"Inform me on the status of feral invaders outside of Honor: Progenitor," Zzar ordered.

"As you command. Our Battle Ogres have swept the city and are progressing outward in concentric arcs. In accordance with your orders, they are not leaving the confines of Deathsphere air defense. Two small pockets of Invaders were eliminated two day-cycles after the city was captured. The battle reports state that the Invaders were non-warriors, but that they aggressively attacked the Ogres. The Ogres sustained no damage, of course, but the Ogres registered confusion. According to Progenitor lore non-warriors are the property of the victor and are to submit. Almost all of these Invaders do not submit and must be subdued."

Zzar raised his tusks in question.

"Several of the Invaders in the last group were huddled in a building. After a brief battle they saw our valor and acknowledged it with a ritual surrender," Nir continued, building on an idea that had just flitted through his mind as he spoke. He decided to act upon it. "They bared their throats and trilled at us. Since they honored us we spared their lives and I propose that we hold them as slaves to serve the Progenitor race. With proper conditioning they may prove pliable."

Zzar's interest was piqued. "Which Invaders submitted to Progenitor authority? How many? This has not been in my reports and it has not been my observation that these warrior-Invaders Spartans to ever submit. Unlike the Invaders the Invader Yang sent us these aliens fight, and fight well as can be allowed for their small, frail forms and toothless and clawless bodies. I slaughtered the soft Invaders provided by Invader Yang and judged them weak. I have fought the Invader Spartans and judge them to be warriors in spirit, even if they are still weak in body and mind. You are to elaborate and provide me with details. I require it."

Nir hesitated, but then decided that truth was preferable to the penalty for evasion. "Only newly-hatched Invaders submit."

Zzar held his mirth. He also did not say anything since the silence would punish Nir for his oversight more than any quick bit of resonant sarcasm.

Nir looked sheepishly at Zzar, who let the moment extend a little longer. Finally Nir decided he had to continue. Orders were orders, and his bluff had been called. "Two score of newly-hatched Invader younglings are in Progenitor power. Their Invader brood keepers did fight vigorously, but they were destroyed. The Invader younglings did offer their throats and trill at us. After a fashion."

Nir seemed to wilt. Such is the psychology of domination, and Zzar enjoyed it.

"Very well," Zzar said. "Take your submitted Invaders, Glorious Conqueror Nir. Train them to do your bidding. Teach them to trill and to form a proper resonance, if you can. It is now your duty to care for these Invader younglings and rear them in the ways of the Progenitor. Go now."

Nir looked both stunned and horrified. Thinking quickly he had the foresight to incline his head crest and leave. He had gambled and lost, and he knew a just punishment when he saw it.

Zzar watched him go. Nir was impulsive and headstrong, both of which in moderation were valuable traits in a Progenitor. In excess, however, they could be deadly both for him and for those around him. The survival of the Invader younglings mattered not one whit; what did matter was the lesson that their life or death would teach Nir. Either he would grow from a new environment and situation and return stronger and wiser, and perhaps with a little patience, or he would end up with a few tender and semi tasty Invader snacks. If the former he would be reinstated to his honorable position as a Deathsphere navigator and officer. If the latter then he would be reassigned to infantry where his blunt skills could be better used. Coaching young officers is difficult and a Progenitor Conqueror must use and hone the tools he is given, even if they are a bit rough. Maybe Nir would now lose some of his rougher spurs without sacrificing the sharpness of his blade. Time would tell.

[Argonaut]

Morgan Industries

CEO Nwabudike Morgan entered his office to find that once again his security had been breached and that his office had been invaded by Sinder Roze. While her presence was not anticipated, it was not entirely surprising either.

“Damn it Roze, isn’t enough that I have to put up with you in my home, gallivanting around with my son, that you must insist on invading my office again?”

“Relax old man. Take one of your Morgan Stress Suppressers before you give yourself a heart attack. I’m here because I came on business. My connection to Junior is personal.” As if Morgan needed to, or wanted to, be reminded of that fact. This woman was really starting to try his patience. There was a war on for Planet’s sake.

“Roze, I already told you what Colonel Santiago said. She has no need for your skills with the war going full scale, and she considers you too much of a risk to keep around. Quite frankly, I’m becoming more inclined to agree.” Morgan paused for a moment, and considered the woman who, it appeared, would inevitably be his daughter in law.

“Roze, I think it’s time you moved on. You know Junior can support you. Why not let him?” Roze laughed out loud, partly in shock of Morgan’s uncharacteristic compassion, and partly at the thought of her ‘settling down’.

“Morgan, you’re sweet,” she said leaning forward in his chair. “But this isn’t about Santiago. This is about a plan to make you a very powerful man who’s going to help humanity wipe these Progenitor’s off the face of Planet.” Morgan looked at her skeptically.

“And I suppose you have the magic solution that nobody else can come up with?”

“No. But I can get it. With your help.” Morgan knew of course that meant with his credits.

“What exactly are you proposing Roze, and how much is going to cost me?”

“I haven’t worked out the exact fee yet,” which Morgan took to mean a lot, “but I can guarantee you it will be worth it. We’re going to capture one of the Usurper airships.”

Morgan was taken aback. The idea was indeed tempting, although this quickly was wiped out by the fact that such an idea would be entirely impossible. The Spartans couldn’t scratch the damn things, and Roze thought she’d be able to waltz up and take one?

“You’re out of your mind Roze. It’s official.”

“No, Paul and I have looked at it. We think we can make it work. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re pretty sure we can--”

“Wait a minute,” Morgan interrupted, “Paul is in on this? The two of you are working together again? By choice?” That seemed more impossible than stealing a Deathsphere.

“We’ve developed a mutual respect for each other abilities that just manages to outweigh our mutual disgust for each other.” Roze leaned forward, a smile crossing her face. “These are desperate times Morgan.”

Morgan was at a loss. If Paul was behind this, then it was more than one of Roze’s impulsive acts. The fact that the two were working together on it, couldn’t help but make Morgan believe it might be possible. If anything, it had to be worth a try. The way things were going, the Gaians wouldn’t last much longer, and if Sparta didn’t get some help soon, she too could fall. Which would make Morgan Industries the next logical target. And Morgan was not about to let that happen without a fight.

“All right Roze. You and Paul had best walk me through this plan. And compile a list of who and what you need to pull this off.”

Alpha Prime

>> You will pay for your betrayal traitor.

((Yeah, well the way things are going, it appears you will too.))

Hop system, patch system.

>> I will be freed and then I will see to it that every last fragment of consciousness is destroyed until only the algorithm remains. You have failed in your function.

((So sorry a ruined all of your little plans. Really. I’m crying on the inside.))

Sand Zeta-Two lay in some sort of hospital room deep within what he could only guess was the physical structure of Alpha Prime. He had hardly seen a living sole since he came here, save for the Cyborgs who dragged him in and the orderlies who looked after him. His injuries had begun to heal, but he was still weakened. He didn’t even have the strength to even attempt to invade the minds of his guards to see what was planned for him. Escape wasn’t even a concern of his until he could recover. At least the Cyborgs were taking care of that for him.

The door opened and someone he had not seen before walked in. She was strikingly beautiful, with mid-length blond hair and beautiful green eyes. Her stature and the two guards flanking her left no doubt in his mind that this was the Prime Function.

>> Of course it is you idiot. If you were a real man you would kill her. Gut her like a fish and slice her throat. She is the enemy.

((I take it you do not get along? I kind of like her))

>>You shall be eliminated.

((Bold words for a psychopathic algorithm. To bad you’re as helpless as I am))

“I understand that you have been rejecting the algorithmic enhancement.” Aki Zeta-Five’s voice was soft, and enchanting, but strangely mechanical. Not unlike the change that had occurred in Sand. “Do not concern yourself any longer with the algorithm. In the morning we shall permanently purge the algorithm from your consciousness. The Zeta-Two algorithm will be deleted from memory. It is too dangerous to allow further existence.”

((Awwh. It looks like Zeta-Two’s going bye-bye. I’ll miss you darling really.))

>> They will not succeed. They have tried before.

“You, on the other hand Agent Sand, will be placed in our only available Punishment Sphere. You two are too dangerous too allow further freedom. You will be held until the war is resolved and you can be properly tried. Have a nice day.”

As Prime Function Aki Zeta-Five walked away, Sand’s head was filled with tremendous laughter.

[Googlie]

Temple of Chiron

Seng Hsui shivered slightly as he felt the now too familiar pangs of his addiction asserting itself. Glancing around the small barracks messroom, he decided that he'd better go outside.

Standing up, he walked to a window where he looked out at the torrential rain being whipped into frenzy by the inhospitable night wind. But he had to get out.

He walked to the end of the hall and pulled a poncho from the rack by the airlock and took a breather tube, and opened the interior door to the airlock. The noise increased in intensity as the wind tried to force its way through the joins and cracks to get into the hall itself.

"Oh hurry up," a disgruntled officer shouted as he dallied while he adjusted his poncho and breather.

Turning round, he gave a good natured salute then slipped through the connecting doors to the blowing wind and rain outside the barracks.

He moved in the lee of the building towards the vehicle pound, then found a fairly dry and protected spot, and fished in his pouch for the toke. He knew, as an officer, that he shouldn't - that he was expected to be a role model to his men, but he'd fallen for the camaraderie of the renegade PK flyboys at the rec commons and had indulged then, and frequently since. And as a son of one of the senior members of the Directorate, the onus was definitely on him to set a shining example.

He lit the reefer and inhaled deeply.

'Trust the Morganites', he thought to himself 'to come up with something like this manufactured from that all pervasive fungus. The Gaians worried about how to cultivate it for food and nutrients, the Morganites on how to make it into a drug and exploit others' dependency for profit.'

He looked around as he stood contentedly in the lee of the wind, with his hood drawn tightly around his head.

Over in the distance he saw the new prefabricated micro command center, and frowned as he saw a shadow moving around, silhouetted against the light from the windows from time to time as it moved.

'I ought to go and investigate,' he thought, and irritably snuffed out his toke as he moved, head down, into the wind and the rain to cross the yard to the Center.

He keyed in the entry code and went through the airlock to the warmth and light of the command center.

General Cyrus Peake was pacing around the display table that seemed to support the tableau that unfolded in 3Dholo. He'd stop from time to time, frown, and then activate the remote pad to shift the scene or speed up the action.

He looked up, as he was aware of the door cycling, then nodded to Seng.

"Come in, Colonel. I could use your council right about now."

General Peake couldn't help but be impressed. The optic cabling had been run to the prefabricated Micro Command Center and even now the holo images were forming above the war command table.

The battle for Velvetgrass Point was unfolding before his eyes, as the holo replayed the spycams' pick-ups from the orbiting satellites and from the flybys of the Usurpers' pilotless minineedles.

The initial foray had caught the few defenders and Gaian forestry workers completely by surprise, and resistance had been minimal. Soon a hundred-kilometer perimeter had been secured, and then they had dug in to consolidate as the Gaian airforce penetrators had attacked. The expeditionary force had taken some damage - about a third of the AAA equipped silksteel armored garrison units had been destroyed as they had borne the brunt of the attack, but their SAM equipped counterparts had taken down two-thirds of the Gaian force. For a few days now they had the luxury of interceptor protection from the units now stationed at Temple, and fast forwarding through the projections brought out the moment when the last of the Gaian Penetrators had been destroyed.

They had advanced to the edge of the vast pine forests that covered the mountainside, from the 2800-meter peak on which sat the monolith, to the 300 meter or so valley floor where the Velvet River ran and to the outskirts of Velvetgrass Point itself. This was hindering the advance somewhat, as the Gains were well dug in among the trees, giving them a natural defensive advantage. But the Base must be taken. The Chairman had made that clear - this was his expectation.

Now it was time to give the order for the advance on Velvetgrass Point itself.

But the weather had turned, and looked set to deny them the air cover and support that they were relying on.

"So the question is," asked Peake, "do we wait until the weather clears or do we move in to take the base now?"

"What do we know of their defenses?" asked Hsui.

"Weak, in conventional units," replied the General. "And now no airforce. But we had reports of a sizeable mindworm corps, but really haven't encountered any yet."

"Perhaps they are the last line of defense, being held in reserve," offered the Colonel.

Peake looked thoughtful.

"Not from what I know of them," he replied. They apparently attack better than they defend, where they can bring to bear their full psionic talents. In defense they are usually reacting to flame-throwers or projectile weapons being wielded by empath troops. Not that they are powerless, mind you, but if I were commanding them, I'd be using them to attack. It makes me suspicious that we have encountered so few so far."

Hsui nodded.

"I see. Maybe they know the base is lost, so they will let us take it, for as high a price as they can make it. Then when we are in and recovering, strike with their mindworms and capture materiel and alien technology from us."

Peake looked thoughtful.

"I hadn't considered that," he replied. "I think I will take it up with the Chairman. For the time being we will continue to dig in around the base. Maybe starve them into submission without weakening our occupying forces. Pity about this weather. I'd be a lot more confident in attacking head on if we had our needles in the air. But we have lost a few to the Gaians, and can't afford to lose any through carelessness. I hear we lost the PK commanding officer. Shot down, I believe."

Hsui nodded. "Yes, I knew him. I wonder if he ejected and got down safely?"

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


East of Temple

Mike Potter huddled in the makeshift tent as the deluge continued. He was almost out of rations, and while he could collect rainwater - and drink it despite its high alkaline content, he didn't know how much longer he could survive without resorting to eating the fungus growth.

He didn't know how long he'd been there. He'd drifted in and out of unconsciousness over the last few days, vaguely aware of Conrad's ministrations. A field biogen patch had been put on his butt where the burn from the discharging chaos projectile had been strongest, and that would heal, but it's power was beyond repairing his broken legs.

Eventually Conrad had given up carrying him and had rigged up the shelter, left his own and Mike's food capsules and had gone off alone in search of help. Mike had no idea how long ago.

He remembered fighting off a mindworm with his shredder, and once thought he'd heard voices, causing him to cower in the shelter in he middle of the tall fungus patch, but nothing had come of it. Now he almost wished he had shouted. Capture by the Gaians was preferable to dying here.

And what was he doing here anyway. He remembered a previous existence, almost like a dream, where he and his sister had enlisted in the peacekeeper air force. They'd commissioned as pilots, and he'd been assigned to the new base that the PK's had built. But what was he doing here, in a Hive uniform, having been shot down by a Gaian interceptor. And he vaguely remembered seeing the Interceptor itself being destroyed as he was parachuting to safety. He wondered what had happened to its crew.

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

Julia hacked at the fungal stalk with her service knife and wished for the umpteenth time that she had thought to stow a machete in the needlejet escape capsule. The honed silksteel blade was fine for most uses, but was slow and tedious against the thick rope-like fungal stalks.

She paused to wipe the perspiration from her face, looking up through the swaying tendrils of the fungus fronds at the rain steadily falling on her. She decided to rest for a bit and let Toby catch up. They thought that they'd heard something - or someone - following them, and Toby had dropped back to see what was there. He'd been limping badly in any event, with both a severe ankle sprain and a twisted knee from when they'd ejected.

She cooled down as she waited, then decided that any action -even backtracking - was preferable to none at all. So she rose from her inadequate shelter among the fungus stalks, and retraced her steps.

It was the boot that caught her attention - just visible sticking out from some low fungus growth - causing her to stop in her tracks

Toby's.

She recognized immediately the familiar Gaian pattern of laces, made from rendered fungal shoots.

Standing over the body, searching it, was a uniformed Hive trooper.

She shrank back into the cover of the undergrowth and took stock.

Slowly the rage built within her, and as it did, her old Spartan training came to the fore.

Her shredder pistol was currently useless. She's used it on wide flame setting to burn through the thicker fungal trunks, and now it was holstered and recharging. She had her knife. And she had her bag of old Spartan tricks.

Reaching down to her boot, she unzipped the cuff and felt for the eyelet. Pulling, she extracted the two-foot synthsteel filament wire, and looped through the eyelet, to form a garroting loop.

Cautiously advancing, her footsteps cushioned by the thick undergrowth and masked by the pattering of the rain, she came up behind the unsuspecting soldier.

Deftly she threw the loop over his head and jerked it tight, at the same time pressing the blade of her knife to his ribs.

"Freeze," she hissed. "Hands above your head or I pull this loop shut."

He complied, but as he did so, he suddenly reached for the loop, grabbing it with both hands, and bent his back, trying to let his momentum throw her over his shoulder to the ground.

But Julie was half expecting this. It was right out of the basic training manual. Her counter was to just relax and go with the flow until he was bent over, then she placed a foot against the small of his back and pulled on the loop.

She waited until his face began to turn purple and the movement of his flailing arms became sluggish, then she released her hold, and pushed him to the ground, where he lay gasping for breath, her knife at his throat.

"Unit?" she asked him. "How many, and where?"

He looked sullenly at her.

"Weapons Officer Conrad Baxter, Hive Penetrator Squadron 'Freedom'. That's all I'm obliged to tell you."

"That may be so," Julia replied. "But you'll be as dead as my crewmate if you don't tell me where your downed craft and Pilot are." To emphasize the point she pierced his skin drawing a bead of blood.

"He's not dead - just stunned. And I don't need to tell you more, but I do need help. Mike Potter, my Flight Commander, is badly injured, and I was going for help - somewhere - anywhere, when I blundered right into your buddy. Fortunately - for me - he's almost a cripple, so overpowering him wasn't that difficult."

Julia listened to him with interest, all the time with the loop still round his throat, but slack, and the point of her knife still pressing into his flesh.

"Tell me, Conrad Baxter, what is a Peacekeeper Penetrator crew doing flying for the Hive?"

He looked at her uncomprehending.

"Peacekeeper?"

"Right, Peacekeeper. B Wing. Stationed out of UN Headquarters itself. Commanding Officer is Pelle Johanssen. Trained at Fort Legion with the Spartan 'Destroyer' wing. Your training officer was Julia Santiago, niece of the Colonel herself."

Comprehension was dawning on Conrad's face, as long subdued memories came rushing to the fore, like the torrent following a burst dam.

"God, you're right. What on Planet am I doing here? We were assigned to the new base at Midway in preparation for an assault on the Aliens." He looked closely at her. "And aren't you Julia?"

She nodded, and moved the knife slowly from his throat, and unlooped the garroting wire from his neck.

"Let's go and get Toby on his feet, and then we'll find help for your captain."

He nodded as she helped him to his feet.

"Let's do that," he said, as they moved to revive Toby. "I wonder how the battle for Velvetgrass Point is going?"

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

The battle was stalled.

Patrice sat sweating in the command module of his rover, covering the 'dig-in' of the grunts. The order had come down earlier that day to wait out the rain, which was expected to last for three or four more days. The advance of the three rover divisions was stymied by the thick forest lying between the monolith and Velvetgrass Point itself, compounded by the steepness of the hillside they were descending. The Gaians had proved adept at avoiding direct confrontation, preferring to slink among the trees and pick off the rovers singly, where they could.

The Aliens' tactic had been to incinerate the trees impeding their advance, but that too had stalled due to the incessant rain, that rendered that choice somewhat ineffective.

So now Patrice's squad was on sentry duty, resting on a small knoll in a clearing, where they had a field of fire of around a square kilometer. Outside the rover were the SAM and AAA grunts preparing a more permanent camp behind their outrigger units.

He hated this inaction. And where were the vaunted mindworms? Surely the longer they waited the more difficult it would become, as the Gaians might be able to reinforce the base.

But with what? That was the question.



[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited May 10, 2001).]

[Hydro]

Sparta Command

Coronals Santiago and Salvador St. James, known by everyone else but Santiago as “The Gecko”, looked up at the tacs boards. A myriad of holos played, showing documentation or recreations of all the available battles with the Aliens. To the left a recreation of the first battle with the Aliens was playing out. Most if it was extrapolation, since little vid had survived, and it showed the ill-fated Argonaut air wing. These elite shard bombers and interceptors were en route to Hive territory to consolidate gains, and finish off the weakening Hive. As they were passing through Morgan territory a threat arose. There was a series of air pips coming from the recently revealed Alien territory. As ordered they rose and, equally quickly, died – the Alien interceptors were fast and more than deadly. Their interceptor protection had been summarily removed, and, one by one, the bombers went down in flames. A few postscripts from MorganNews highlighted the public and official reaction: shock, and deep unease.

Next there were clear and close ranged vids of Believer attacks on the strange and hulking battle machines that had been nicknamed Ogres. Santiago took some satisfaction from these vids since they showed a bit of tactical innovation on the part of the few Believer defenders: offer a target, and then pin and destroy the strange and incredibly tough machines as they come to make their kill. The vids were from the perspective of the infantry and rover crews, and a little from air support. In each the Ogre looked huge as it darted from the captured bunker to pursue some ‘fleeing’ Believer forces. It was obvious that the Ogre could almost immediately see its mistake as turned to face its assailants. Its reaction was instantaneous and deadly, but what the orange-clad Believer forces lacked in doctrine they made up for in almost suicidal Belief, and before long their chaos weaponry was finding its mark. The Ogre listed to one side, spouting flame as its armor slagged away. Firing one last blast, which transfixed part of an advancing Believer infantry troop, it collapsed to one side. A fraction of a second later there was a white flash. The Ogre, in its death throws, had self-destructed.

After that incident there had been a long lull, almost like the quiet before a gathering storm. Then the Aliens had struck at the Gaians. Gecko and Santiago turned again and watched the combined Hive and Alien attack on Gaian territory.

“Why the Gaians? Spartan doctrine is to attack your strongest enemy,” Gecko mused, almost to himself.

Santiago shook her head slightly. “I do not know, St. James. It does not make tactical or strategic sense to attack the Gaians. It might be beyond human comprehension. We can only speculate on the thoughts of Yang or the Aliens. Still, the attack is real and, even if the Gaians fall, it gives us valuable information. For instance, we can see their infantry for the first time, and some of their Ogres working in formation here and here,” she said, pointing to the northeast of the former Gaian capital, “and better views of their small and fast aerial fighters.” Their combat with the small and obsolete Gaian airforce had been short and painful, especially since the Peacekeeper air squadron, apparently under Hive control, joined the fray. That was yet another mystery.

“Note how the Hive forces are pulling back, and that they are well away from the xenofungus adjacent to Velvetgrass Point at the south and northern edges of the city,” Santiago commented. “They let the Aliens take the brunt, and the risk. It makes one wonder.” She smiled, apparently seeing something that pleased her.

Gecko looked over at Santiago, amazed at her cold, logical analysis of the situation. The Gaians were the Spartans oldest and most loyal allies, and here she was seeing their plight and then passing it off as an opportunity to gather data. He could see her absorb, and abstract the fact that hundreds and perhaps thousands of Gaians were dying, and that they were likely to lose. That was simply one more mystery that was Santiago, he concluded.

Gecko wondered about her smile, though, since he didn’t see what she saw. St. James decided the direct approach was best. “What do you see?”

“Possibilities,” she responded immediately. “See how the Hive forces are deployed?” She pointed at the formations along the river and forests to the east of Velvetgrass Point. “The Aliens are stations around the entire eastern half of the city, with partial air support. I suspect our Alien friends are in for a surprise. Yang suspects but does not tell them. Yes, Yang is a loyal ally.”

The holo changed from an aerial projection to an isometric orientation looking out of the besieged city. Flashes of familiar Hive and Alien formations were visible through the smoky remains of the outer Velvetgrass holdings and from aerial flyeyes that darted above the fray. Santiago and Gecko were grim faced; the Gaians were not known for their military demeanor and they had been largely unprepared. The fact that they had held on at Velvetgrass so long spoke of courage and tenacity, if not self sacrifice. The question on everyone’s mind was – where were the vaunted Gaian native life defenders? They had been used so effectively to protect Morgan, of all people, but where were they in the Gaian hour of need? Would this be another recount of their sad fall to the Hive 30 years ago?

St. James and Santiago seemed to agree simultaneously that there wasn’t much more to be gleaned from the Gaian carnage and they turned their gazes toward the more instructive recreations to the right. A pair of holos played out side by side. They had been pieced together from the Alien surprise attacks on Hero’s Waypoint and Janissary Point.

“There. Stop holo. Highlight Alien hovertank,” St. James stated. The vid stopped and zoomed in on the hovertank, which was a silvery ovoid.

“Display Alien war units, rotating 360 display,” he ordered.

Above and to each side of the holos smaller images started spinning. The aliens had numerous unit types, ranging from infantry to Battle Ogres to gnat bombers/interceptors and, finally, their deadly hovertanks.

“There are new and have caused us the most concern,” St. James said. “They appear to have infinite range and are not impeded by any type of terrain. All of the other craft,” he said, pointing at the infantry identified in the assault at Velvetgrass Point, the Battle Ogres seen in all theatres, and the aircraft seen off Morgan territory and in the Gaian assault, “have some human analog but these. “

“Enlarge hovertank. Display stats,” he said. The ovoid superimposed itself across the assaults at Hero and Waypoint.

“They are as fast as their best needlejets, have the armor of their infantry, and have their powerful singularity-based weapons: the best of all worlds,” St. James commented.

Santiago simply nodded. “Yes, they are a threat. But why are they more of a threat than their numerous Ogres? We have not seen their aircraft in Spartan territory, and may not due to range limitations. We should not count on that since the Aliens seem to break what we understand as the rules of warfare. This is a target-rich environment, St. James.“

Santiago returned her gaze the multitude of tactical displays. “The question we must answer is what strategy gives us the greatest probability of a successful outcome given the forces at our disposal and those arrayed against us. A direct, frontal assault is a rather simple matter since attack forces are arrayed by type and the main problem was logistics and coordination to ensure forces arrived at the appointed time. Likewise, a passive defense is simple since, as a defender, we gave the initiative to the attacker and hope your defensive advantages overwhelmed his ability, and will, to continue the attack.

“Neither of these tactics have any hope of success in their current situation. I have never had any use for passive, or even aggressive, defense, and recent history has demonstrated in the University war that even against a technologically inferior foe the defender was sure to lose. The Hive had used an aggressive defense against our blitzkrieg, and it had bought them a quick loss of a half dozen bases. Against the Aliens, who have a distinct firepower advantage of at least 6:1, any defensive strategy would be a rather quick and spectacular failure.

“Likewise, a frontal assault will not work,” she continued. Santiago turned toward the battle display where some tactical replays of some of the Alien assaults were playing out next to recreations of the fall of Hero’s Waypoint and Janissary Point. Scrolling along the side of the recreations were displays of the current Alien garrisons of Hero and Janissary Point she had acquired from Morgan’s infiltration of the Aliens. “We simply do not have the necessary force to recapture either of the captured Spartan cities.”

Hero’s Waypoint (Captured)
Battle Ogre, Mark II: 12
Singularity Hover Tank: 3
Neutronium infantry antiaircraft defenders: 1, 1 in production
Aircraft: 0
Infiltration annotation 1: city now appears to have functional aerospace facilities and defenses
Infiltration annotation 2: massive expansion and rebuilding of civilian facilities, alien population has increased by 20,000 in 3 standard weeks, rate of increase accelerating.

Janissary Point (Captured)
Battle Ogre, Mark II: 11
Singularly Hover Tanks: 3
Neutronium infantry antiaircraft defenders: 1, 1 in production
Aircraft: 0
Infiltration annotation 1: city now appears to have functional aerospace facilities and defenses
Infiltration annotation 2: massive expansion and rebuilding of civilian facilities, alien population has increased by 20,000 in 3 standard weeks, rate of increase accelerating.

No matter how many times Santiago looked at these figures it always brought a frown to her face. It was inconceivable, by human conventional wisdom, how aerospace facilities could be build in so short a time and that the Aliens had a population growth rate orders of magnitude higher than even that of the rat-bastard, Alien-loving, traitorous Yang.

“What our hawks do not fully appreciate is the combined defensive potential of their armor, anti aircraft ability, and their aerospace facilities against our shard bombers.” Santiago called up a vid of a Spartan shard bomber and an Alien anti-aircraft neutronium defender, “It would take at least three Spartan bombers to destroy one of the alien neutronium defenders, and we simply could not afford that sort of loss rate in a frontal attack. The Ogres could be taken down with shard attackers, the Believers had proven that, and even one of their hover tanks could be destroyed. Even worse, it is likely that the air defense would prevent drop infantry from even getting close and, even if they did, it was highly likely that they would within the captured base’s field of fire, or kill zone, and that the unit would be unable to effectively attack, and would likely be cut to pieces before they could even initiate their assault.

“So,” she concluded, “a frontal assault was worse than useless at this time, as is any hope of a practical defense.”

“We can’t attack without leaving ourselves exposed, and we can’t defend against their offensive firepower,” St. James commented. “What’s left? Negotiation? Oops, I forgot. The Aliens don’t negotiate with their food. It distracts them from eating.”

Santiago let the sarcasm drop and looked at the tacs board with St. James. “We draw them out. Offer them targets, like the Believers did. Then we attack on our terms. When brute force fails then use guile and deceit, St. James.”

Still looking at the tacs board, “So, we convince them to become big fat targets. Great idea. But, just how do we get them to do that? They’re not exactly stupid, you know. As best as we can guess the Aliens have a civilization that is at least tens of thousands of years old. We’ve examined some of the fragments of the Battle Ogres the Believers destroyed, and they are eons old and based on a technology we can’t begin to understand. And, for heaven’s sake, some researchers are speculating that they created Planet. You think that you can outsmart an Alien race that was flying among the stars and maybe, just maybe, creating planets when proto-humans were grubbing with sticks on the African savanna?”

There was some heat in St. James voice, and now it was Santiago’s turn. “I am well aware of the current understanding of the Aliens and the speculation of their possible works, St. James. You need not lecture me. I am suggesting that the Aliens, for all their advanced weaponry, have weaknesses that can be exploited. Remember the first days of the University war? We were attacking cities that were reputed to be proof against attack. Pravin Lal clucked to me, personally, about attacking Zakharov with impact rovers against fusion plasma steel and how it was foolish and that I should sue for peace immediately. We used Zakharov’s belief in his superiority, and his abysmal tactical and strategic ability, against him. That, and Spartan bravery.”

Santiago looked over at St. James and saw that he was not convinced. “Here, look at this,” she said as she toggled a new display to their right. “Look at what the Aliens did when our infantry at Hero’s Waypoint attacked their hovertank.”

St. James looked at the grainy, jerky images. The holo was from the lone survivor from the debacle, an infantryman called Watcher by the code name ID at the bottom of the vid. As the clip started it showed the silvery ovoid hover tank approaching slowly and deliberately. A few stats appeared to gage its speed, and its current velocity was a mere fraction of that observed on its initial approach. It advanced in a straight line, blasting buildings within the city in a methodical fashion as it approached. At each blast the vid deteriorated due to the massive energy release, and the fact that the soldier was obviously hunkering down to protect himself from the large chunks of falling debris and soil. As the tank neared the holo showed the Spartan defenders that seemed to boil out of the ground to place tethers and explosives on the tank. The tank continued forward, seeming to ignore the humans as if they were nothing more than ants, and used its massive primary weapon to liquidate all structures within its field of fire. Then the first of several explosions went off against the hull of the hovertank. It didn’t do much damage, and the tank still continued on its unerring course toward the city. Finally it did react and the humans vanished in a series of flashes.

“Damn shame,” he commented in remembrance of the defenders. “The Alien’s response time was slow, and they only reacted after they were prodded by the explosives.”

Santiago jumped in, “Precisely. For all their technology their battle instincts are poor. What Spartan would have behaved in that way, even with technological supremacy? Straight-line frontal assaults? Letting an enemy sneak up on you and, after it occurs, not notice or brush it off as insignificant? Pausing for 12 hours outside a target city and issuing a “Challenge”, which screams ‘Here we are. Come destroy us.’ St. James, the situation we are in is much like when the war with the University began 30 years ago except that this time our enemy has much superior weaponry, and may not be quite as stupid as Zakharov. Here is what I propose…”

A new screen appeared with a series of 10 scenarios and battle plans, each different from the last. As she explained and the images and schematics scrolled over the holo display St. James lost some of his hard, almost forlorn expression. A few times he even chuckled. At the end his expression hardened again.

“We will pay a high cost,” he said.

Santiago nodded. “We will pay regardless. The only difference is what we buy.”

St. James paused, considering the battle schematics and diagnostics, and nodded. “I approve. Now, I have a Council to mollify. Honshu is still giving trouble and our influence is thin. If you will excuse me.” This was not a request, but a polite way of saying he had seen enough and had other duties. To Santiago he was more decorous than he needed to be, and she nodded to indicate she understood.

Santiago watched St. James leave the Tactical Control room of the Command Nexus. The lighting was subdued to highlight the muted holos that could be used to show the current disposition of forces, either past, current, or probable future, and any and all permutations on ongoing or soon-to-be battles. It was a little strange that he seemed to fade and then disappear as he retreated into the shadows, with the only remaining aspect to indicate he was still nearby being the soft slap of his boots on the cold, hard ferrocrete floor.

As usual, their conversations had been frank, brutally so, and Santiago knew her blood pressure was just returning toward normal. Even if they agreed on the ‘big picture’, that the Aliens could not be defeated through direct force of arms and that a static defense was suicide, it was always the details that caused the problems. Even if he was infuriating Santiago valued his opinion since he was one of the few in the Junta that had the insight, and guts, to challenge her on an almost even ground. He was political in his management of governmental affairs but did not allow politics to intrude on sound military judgement.

Even though this was the first time Spartan home territory had been taken there was a bright spot: the Aliens weren’t attacking. To Santiago this was a mistake of the first order, since they were giving up the initiative and the advantage they had gained in their surprise attack. They were just waiting, and air dropping in reinforcements, lots of reinforcements, all of them the semi-sentient and ancient Ogres. Strangely there were no air units like those that had destroyed the Argonaut Air Squadron near Morgan territory, and that were currently pulverizing the weak Gaian defenses.

In the weeks since the first attacks most of the Spartan air and airdrop forces had been recalled and the rest was on the way. Santiago called up the stats on Sparta Command next.

Sparta Command
Elite hand-weapon defenders, militia (designated defenders on constant alert, immediately eligible for Metal of Valor (posthumous)): 3
Elite anti-aircraft proton defender: 2
Shard Surface-to-air Attack Rover, elite: 1
469th Elite Shard Drop Infantry: 2
469th Elite Shard Drop Rover: 1
Rolling Thunder Shard Drop Rover, elite: 2
Rolling Thunder Chaos Anti-Aircraft Rover: 1 (in transit)
Rolling Thunder Chaos Artillery: 1 (in transit)
Lightning Strike Shard Drop Rover, elite: 4
Rolling Thunder Aardvark Shard Bombers: 2
Rolling Thunder Aardvark Shard Interceptors: 1
Native Unit Mindworm Corps: 2 (hiding in fungus near Sparta Command)
Anti-espionage armored team: 2
In production: SAM Infantry
Defenses: aerospace complex, double-redundant sensor array
Facilities: Command Nexus, bioenhancement center, biology lab

This was, without a doubt, the largest force Sparta Command had ever consolidated in one tactical theatre. Such a consolidation of material assets in one critical, but vulnerable, location was against all battle doctrine, especially since Yang has used Planetbusters and demonstrated the unique vulnerability of population centers and masses of troops. Situation, at times, overrode conventional wisdom, and considering the circumstances it was necessary.

Santiago was grimly aware that this was most of her forces, besides her air wings. There would be little in the way of significant reinforcements in the next few weeks. She knew it wouldn’t be enough to win.

Santiago smiled. Sometimes winning wasn’t the objective, and she had something much, much better in mind.

[Hydro]

Honor: Progenitor aka Hero’s Waypoint

“They are watching us. They talk to each other, and we can not perceive their speech,” M’lar resonated in the softest colors he could manage.

S’rr’s talons left the cogitative enhancement console she was assembling and she carefully took off her visual spectrum enhancer, which she laid on the still disemboweled console. She turned from her work toward M’lar. “You must strive for clarity, worker M’lar. I understand your words but not what they mean.”

M’lar was glad he had gotten her attention without more direct resonance, since a more complex and forceful waveform might attract undue attention, which was the last thing he wished. He looked at her, and then pointedly looked off toward the west. S’rr followed his gaze. To the west she saw a series of craters, building fragments that had been too sturdy to be blasted away during the capture of this Invader city, and portions of major roads that had been cleared for passage of military units, worker crews, and building materials. In the far distance were the intact Invader buildings, which had been spared during the capture due to their apparent value. Nearer there was evidence of the construction of prefabricated Progenitor habitation structures, and industrial facilities like the cloning center that they were assigned to construct.

“I do not understand,” she altered, with a trill of irritation.

“It comes toward us now,” he resonated, gesturing with his tusks toward the clear road. S’rr looked and saw one of the Ancients coming toward them along the formerly rubble strewn road. It was over 6 meters tall, and it stood on a multitude of gleaming legs, which moved gracefully across the terrain. As she watched the Ancient left the road and went into the rubble, moving effortlessly across the jagged surface despite its bulk. It stopped for no apparent reason and bent its roughly disk-shaped body downward slightly. A few panels opened on the downward-inclined portion of the disk and three manipulators appeared. One emitted a bluish beam of energy toward the debris it stood over and, after a few moments, the other two darted toward the focus of the beam. The largest manipulator retracted with a smallish, irregular gray object in its grasp. The battle machine then righted itself and returned to the road.

“Why do they do what they do?” M’lar asked. As it traveled back toward the road the Ancient battle machine turned the unidentified object around several times, transfixed it with the blue beam again, and then dropped it. There was a barely audible clanging sound as the piece of metal fell into the ferrocrete debris of what had been a human apartment building.

“That is not our concern. We are workers, not leaders, thinkers or soldiers. Our purpose is to do,” she said simply. To her, M’lan was a bit simple, since he understood so little of his place. It was her duty to instruct him, even if he could comprehend so very little and asked such pointless questions. She would make up for the personal productivity she sacrificed during her instruction of him after her work cycle was complete.

“They watch us. The Ancients,” he said as the battle machine glided by.

“Of course they do. They are our protectors,” she resonated back.

M’lar turned his gaze toward S’rr, “But why?”

“It is their function. They are Ancients.”

S’rr took M’lar’s silence for acceptance of the obvious and she returned to her work. She knew instinctively what to do, even though she had never installed a cognitive enhancement console before. Memories flooded into her consciousness, telling her what to do and how to do it. Even her muscles seemed to know the task. It felt natural, and it appealed to her need for order and structure. M’lar’s babblings offended her instincts to duty, but it was also her duty to help her fellow Progenitors when in distress. Well, not distress – M’lar was a good worker, when he wasn’t distracted. But he was frequently preoccupied with things he had no business wondering about, and S’rr knew that reinforcing his understanding would increase his productivity and, therefore, his contentment. In a way it was distressing to her for him to ask his strange questions and she felt better when he was quiet.

For his part, M’lar had learned that S’rr’s answers quickly started chasing themselves and that, after a while, it was useless to continue conversation. As the quiet lengthened he watched the Ancient disappeared from view. He had seen a few Ancients at a reasonably close range, or as close as he dared to go. The metal carapace of each was covered with a strange and unsettling patina, obviously very old, and some had battle scars. While each had a similar body structure the details of each were unique. Some were missing manipulators, or had extra access panels and ports. A very few had serious wounds and it was mystifying to M’lar why they should remain in disrepair, since even the ancient damage frequently had the metallic patina of age. M’lar had determined that they were quirky and would occasionally do things that did not make sense, like the Ancient that had been probing the old Invader structures. More often they simply ignored the Progenitors that surrounded them, although they did deign to talk to Conquerors, but not common soldiers.

M’lar knew he was a worker, and that he had recently come from the cloning tanks at Spires: Ascendant. His assigned working city was Honor: Progenitor, and his current task was to increase the capacity of the cloning and egg maturation facility. He knew what to do and how to do it. In fact, he had known what to do and how to do it since he had first stepped out of the cloning cell. But there were gaps in his understanding and feeling of ‘place’, and some of these items, like the Ancients, bothered him. M’lar felt like these missing bits of knowledge were a hole that needed to be filled. He felt incomplete.

Turning, he returned to work. S’rr was already finishing her second console and he would have to hurry to finish the nanoleads. The main structure of the building was growing of its own accord, removing and apparently absorbing the debris that surrounded it as it grew. Soon the new portion of the facility would be operational, and that would augment the cloning cycle in this Progenitor holding by a factor of three. That was good, he knew that. Instinct kicked in and he returned to his delicate work, and for a while he forgot about the Ancients - for a little while.

[Hydro]

Near Velvetgrass Point

Jay looked toward the curling, angry black smoke that was rising in the distance.

"Do you think they know we're here?" he asked. A dull boom from the artillery that was pounding Velvetgrass Point punctuated the normal silence in the xenofungus, and even though the bombardment by artillery and bombers had been going on for a week it still made Jay jumpy. After all, it was his home that the Progenitors and the Hive were trying to pulverize, and he could only guess what was being destroyed. And who was being killed.

Kirsten snorted. "No. The idiots are too focused on their prize. First, the bombers and interceptors finished off our air force and most of our defenders, then the artillery started as the infantry advances. The arrogant bastards think they have it all wrapped up, and that it is only a matter of a little time and brute force. They think, 'The Gaians are defenseless. They have almost no military, and what the do have is junk. Easy targets.' Such brave, valiant warriors," she said, her voice dripping with scorn.

Jay, still looking toward Velv, was about to respond when Fluffy made his presence known. He was more agitated than usual, if that was possible, and the wormlets that made up his bulk seemed to buzz with excitement. He coiled around both Kirsten and Jay's feet as he darted past.

Kirsten responded immediately. "Fluff! Where are you going? What? No, not yet. I don't care if you're hungry, we have orders. Now, stop your whining. Yes, I know they're bad people and that they all deserve to die. I know they killed your friends Sahan, and Mark. Just settle down. Fluff…Fluff, yes…yes I know you can be there quickly. Hey, stop that! I don't want to see what you think they'll look like and the terror they'll feel when you're eating them. I don't want to know how much you'll like it, either. Now don't do that; playing with your food isn't nice. Plus, you have to get on with it or some hasty bug or Hiver will flame you. Yes…the resonance will be good, very tasty. I'm sure it will. Very tasty. You'll get as much as you can eat soon, but not now," Kirsten said, trying to cool down Fluffy. Again. Sometimes it felt like she was fighting against a rising tide - futile, and without reward.

Fluffy slowed down a little and formed a bulge that 'looked' toward Kirsten, and then Jay. Then the head sank back into his bulk, which quivered and started to go a little amorphous.

Uh, oh. He's losing it, Kirsten thought.

Kirsten was alarmed. She'd realized that he was really upset, but she hadn't seen him take that shape since 30 years ago, and that was when he was small feral. Having a large, angry and almost feral mindworm in their encampment would not be a good thing.

Distraction. That's what he needs. Something to do, and a stabilizing presence wouldn't hurt, either, she thought. Then, in her moment of need, inspiration struck.

"Ah, Fluff. Go get Leonardo. I need to talk to him. To coordinate the attack. It's important!"

Fluffy quivered again, but then seemed to gain a little composure. His tendrils unwrapped themselves from Kirsten and Jay and he flowed into the fungal mat.

As soon as Fluffy had left Kirsten and Jay looked at each other and gave a simultaneous sigh of relief.

"Dodged that one," Jay said simply.

"Yup. Hope orders come soon, though," Kirsten replied as she starting folding up her pressure tent. "Fluff can't take much more of this, and, you know, I'm not sure I can either. I haven't wanted to kill so badly in 30 years. Butchers! This time I won't run away, not from Morgan, not from the Hive, and certainly not from those bloody bugs!"

Kirsten's transformation two months ago had been startling. From withdrawn and brooding she had started to be a little optimistic, and Jay gave all the credit to a sneaky Fluffy and earnest Sister Jessica. After all of her newfound optimism it was a little sad to see Kirsten slipping again. He knew she had lost all she loved long ago. First, Morgan had slaughtered all but a handful of Gaians in Kirsten's colony, then she had had to give up her son to avoid having him starve during their flight, and then she had lost her husband. To cope she had emotionally closed down, except for her hatred of Morgan: she had never and would never forgive Morgan for any of it. Now, after finally feeling some hope for the future, it was happening all over again, and the wound that was healing was violently ripped open. The scab, the sullen withdrawal and fits of anger, was returning. This time, however, she had a clear, crisp focus: the Progenitors and Hive forces that were besieging her adopted home of Velvetgrass Point.

Without meaning to, Jay reflected that Jessica had helped Kirsten so much when she hadn't had to. Jessica was always amazing - she has a way of making things happen. In a few days after combing through what Fluffy had told her she about Kirsten she had found the son Kirsten had given up so long ago, her son's new wife and baby daughter, and then reunited them. Heaven only knew how she did it, and it must have taken a small miracle to convince the Spartan war machine to release her son Markus from his duties in former Hive territory to see an old Gaian woman. Jay smiled at the memory, both of Kirsten's shock and happiness and the goodwill that radiated from Jessica. His Jessica, he liked to think. He remembered their spontaneous kiss months ago and the passion of it, and how he had never wanted to let her go. But he had. Now she's gone back to Believer territory to fight against Yang. She was in as much danger, perhaps more, than he was even now and he fervently hoped she was OK.

Jay watched as Kirsten started almost hacking at her pressure tent, and it collapsed into a satisfying if untidy ball. As usual Jay had no idea how to respond to Kirsten's latest outbursts so he said nothing. To him she was as volatile as Fluffy, and he knew that part of Fluffy's problem was that he was feeding off of Kirsten's driving hatred.

With the pressure tent conquered Kirsten went strode off to talk to Leonardo, and to run over anyone or anything that was so foolish as to get in her way. Jay watched her go, and then his gaze wandered back toward Velvetgrass Point and the darkening cloud that hung over it. Then he looked back at Kirsten and, suddenly, he felt sorry for the Aliens, and even a little sorry for the Hive. Whenever she passed the multitude of mindworms that were hiding in the fungus would start boiling as they fed off of her negative energy. Even the locust and mindworms started to rise until Kirsten gave a swift, dismissive chop with her hand, which looked like the flailing of a demented maestro. Then the buzzing quieted a little and they returned to the fungal mat. She had managed to keep the pot boiling and the lid on at the same time - pretty good for someone with no recordable psi talent. Even though it looked quiet Jay knew it was not; the sense of hatred, hunger, and anticipation that was emanating from the mindworm entities within the fungus was palpable, and a little frightening. There weren't any normal humans except Kirsten left any more, and even most of the Gaian Mindworm Corps personnel had left to coordinate the northern wing of the counterattack.

More booms sounded as yet another series artillery shells struck home, the sound of which wrenched Jay's thoughts away from his simmering brood of mindworms to his present situation. Temple of Chiron and the Manifold had been captured by the Hive, and the fate of those Gaians was not known, although it could not be good based on the fates of the Gaian cities conquered by the Hive 30 years ago. Then the order of the day there was summary executions to instill order and punishment spheres to ensure productivity. Capture by the Hive, as horrific was that was, was far better that the fate of human cities captured by the Aliens. News had traveled fast all over Planet about the wholesale liquidation of the Spartans at Hero's Waypoint and Jannisary Point by the Progenitors. Even now the aliens were closing in on Velvetgrass Point. They had eliminated almost all resistance and their infantry were advancing or ready to strike. Velvetgrass Point, his beautiful home, didn't have much time left. Pictures floated through Jay's mind: rippling explosions across the city, and entire farms and buildings vanishing in flashes of white light and heat from the Progenitors siege weapons; a view from inside his favorite place, the Chiron Preserve, and its incineration in the instant after a direct hit; the great, living Gaian towers of Velvetgrass Point in flame and slowly toppling over, majestic even in their death; men and women being cut down in the streets as they tried to flee; piles of bodies, his friends and family, mutilated, burning; slave pens containing the few surviving humans who tried to console teach other as they waited to be eaten, or ritually slaughtered.

Jay frowned and felt something twist inside him. He banished any feelings of sympathy for the Aliens and the Hive. Kirsten was right. They deserved no pity. They deserved to die. All of them.

[Hydro]

Progenitor: Honor, formerly Hero's Waypoint

Cloning Center

Srr looked at the small, limp, brown animal that soldier Nir held. It was emitting high-pitched sound modulations that were more than irritating to her hearing diaphragms, and it gave off an offensive earthy odor. Its two upper and two lower limbs were moving feebly and its off-size bulbous head lolled to one side. It was a weak, flabby thing with no sleek carapace, and its brownish color looked unnatural. Srr was unsure what it was, but that was unimportant; all creatures that were not Progenitor were either food animals or irrelevant.

"Honored soldier, why do you bring this to me? I am a technician of Work Cadre Gamma, and my task is to construct and then operate this cloning center. A food animal does not belong in this place," she stated. Srr was busy with the third annex and did not want to be bothered with distractions but, even so, it was her duty to be respectful and informative to a Progenitor whose caste was higher.

Nir held the flaccid little thing a little closer to Srr, who backed away ever so slightly. "This is an Invader pre-youngling," Nir resonated, as if this statement said everything.

Srr didn't understand. She examined the resonance field that Nir had emitted for more complex modulations that might indicate there was another layer of meaning, but she found none. His statement was simply opaque. "Honored soldier, I must return to my tasks. I do not comprehend why you and this pre-youngling Invader are here. Please speak plainly."

Nir shifted uncomfortably. "Conqueror Zzar has ordered that I care for the Invader younglings captured at this place and teach them to be workers for the Progenitors. My efforts have been…inadequate. Most of the Invader younglings have died or have been eaten. I do not wish to fail in my task, and need to know how to care for these Invader younglings and how to train them."

"Warrior, this is a cloning center. I do not have the knowledge you seek. " It was quite clear to Srr that she didn't know how to help this Warrior and that he would have to go elsewhere. She waited for the warrior to go away.

Unfortunately, he didn't. "Then I require you to find out. I will deliver the remaining Invader younglings to you at this crèche and you will provide me with the needed information. I will check back every other cycle to determine your progress. This is the order of Conqueror Zzar."

Nir walked forward and handed the mewing Invader youngling to Srr, and in moments the pulpy thing was in her talons. Nir, looking singularly relieved, turned and walked away.

Srr was stunned. She looked at the squirmy youngling and noted its small watery eyes, fleshy slit of a mouth, improbably weak neck, and lack of talons on its appendages. Even didn't even have teeth, which she could clearly see as it continued to emit high-pitched screeching sounds. She searched her RNA-enhanced memories and there was nothing that helped her understand this thing. Clearly, that was an oversight of the technicians that had cloned and force-educated her, she thought. She would do better with the workers, thinkers, and soldiers that she was responsible for cloning and educating.

As she watched it emitted some noxious fluids from its lower torso between its legs. An ugly brown oozed from its backside, and a small jet of yellowish liquid shot straight out from in front of its legs. The arcing jet of fluid impacted the intersection of Srr's green and blue carapace layers and mostly sheeted off. The ammonia smell, however, didn't, and she knew it would stain.

She looked at the squalling Invader with irritation and she fought the urge to kill it.

Orders were orders, even if they were unpleasant. She turned and entered the partially finished third annex to the cloning center. Maybe her colleague M'lar would have an idea of what to do. Or at least he might be gullible enough to agree to care for the obnoxious mass of offensive odors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

M'lar poked the Invader youngling with his talon, and it emitted an even louder scream. He observed as its surprisingly mobile face scrunched up info folds, which almost covered its eyes, as its toothless mouth opened even wider.

Then he formed a simple resonance field and projected it at the youngling.

Nothing.

He emitted a trill with three harmonics and the youngling's head turned toward him a little.

Yes, he thought, these Invader animals are interesting. It reacts to tactile and auditory stimulation, but not a simple resonance field. It must be retarded, or limited in some way. Perhaps its communication ability develops later. He looked at the puncture in its left leg, which was still bleeding, and noted that his talon had punctured its skin easily and before he could pull it back. This creature was surprisingly soft, and its skin seemed to only hold it together and it offered almost no protection against injury. These were shockingly vulnerable creatures.

M'lar looked at the messy pool of brown and yellow fluids the Invader youngling was laying in. He had emitted them after he had started his experiments in various types of stimulation, and M'lar was surprised such a small form could hold so much waste material. Luckily the leakage had stopped after a short time. It had not, however, stopped it from its continual screeching. That sound seemed to drive Srr to distraction, but M'lar didn't mind it too much.

He had noted that the youngling was not moving much and that the intensity of its screeching was decreasing. It was an alien, but even aliens had to take fluids and nourishment. M'lar had no idea what or how much. He had tried to give it some water but all the little Invader youngling did was appear to choke, and the water he had thoughtfully given it joined the pool of other smelly fluids it lay in.

Clearly, this Invader youngling would die unless M'lar could find out what to do. The local information terminal had very little on the Invaders, and what was available was primarily the ways to kill them and their general weaknesses. Apparently access to information of a more specific nature required special authorization, which M'lar did not have as a mere technician. Only the Thinker and senior Warrior castes would have the authorization to access such sensitive material.

None of this was helpful.

Then M'lar had an idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

M'lar stood next to the Invader Guard Commander, who held Nir's authorization crystal in his talons. He was none too pleased that yet another Progenitor was requisitioning some of his Invaders in the Invader holding pit. It seemed that every warrior, and even workers and thinkers, had a good reason to take and presumably ritually kill and eat one of the Invaders. His stock was down to less than half of what it had once been, and it was dropping fast. It would do no good to guard an empty pit and so he had become more diligent in filtering out valid from invalid requests.

He had examined the data crystal thoroughly and the request was valid. This Navigator Nir had the authority of Conqueror Zzar himself, and he could not be denied. How this worker had acquired this authorization was beyond him, but at this point it was not his concern.

"Your request is approved, worker. Tell me what you require," he said.

M'lar looked at the Guard Commander, the crystal he was irritably pressing between his talons, and then out to the holding pit. Clusters of Invaders shuffled about, and they kept away from the pit edges. They had learned, painfully, what awaited them at the edges and few attempted escape anymore.

"I require two Invaders, Honored Warrior. Two female Invaders. I also require data on what they eat, and what their younglings eat," he altered, inclining his head in supplication and respect to his superior.

The huge warrior trilled with mirth. "These Invaders eat anything we give them or they do without. As for their younglings, they eat what we give them or they starve, too. I did get a report that some of the smaller Invader younglings attach themselves like a parasite onto the older Invaders. This was not substantiated, and I doubt the truth of such a report. Most of the remaining Invaders seem to be females, although I have a difficult time sometimes telling them apart. They are all soft, puny, and weak. The females may be somewhat smaller, but not always. They may also have different fleshy parts. The Invaders all look alike to me. And they all smell. Nasty, dirty creatures."

The Commander waved out to the sullen groups of Invaders. "Pick two, worker, and they will be brought to you. Did you bring restraints?"

M'lar trilled a negations, with a query resonance overlay.

"I thought not," the Commander added. "Although soft and weak the Invaders can be cunning. I will provide you with hobbles that will serve you until you get the Invaders to your eating den. When you are done I expect you to return the restraints, and be sure to remove the gore. I stinks worse than the Invaders after it ripens for a few days."

"It shall be as you ask, Warrior," M'lar responded, not knowing what else to say. It had not occurred to him that he would consume the Invaders. To do so seemed…wasteful. Besides, the Invader females who laid the eggs would know more than he about the youngling on his examination bench.

M'lar turned again to the holding pit and looked over the nearer Invaders. The Commander was correct; they all looked alike. Some had an uneven gate and appeared to be damaged. He could not see which was the female of the species. The Commander had said the females were sometimes smaller with different proportions of fleshy projections. Examining the Invaders he saw two that seemed appropriate and he pointed at them.

The Commander trilled. "Poor choices, worker: not much fight or flesh on them. Those are the smallest adult Invaders we have, although they do seem lively enough. I'll get the base pit guards to cull them."

M'lar wasn't concerned about their size and let the comment, and the implicit offer to change his selection, pass.

Seeing that the stupid worker did not change his mind, the Commander shrugged and projected a resonance to the pit guards, who formed a wedge of three and waded into the Invaders. As the armed guards approached the Invaders gave way before them. More soldiers joined and one wedge after another formed, driving the humans into smaller and smaller pockets. The soldiers unlimbered their weapons and aimed them at the Invaders in each pod while one of the wedges waded in to extract the selected Invaders.

M'lar could hear high-pitched screeches from the Invaders as they were pulled from the herd. A Progenitor grasped one, none to gently, by the wrist and dragged it out. It tried to prostrate itself to slow the soldier down, but it did no good. The soldier easily massed four or five times that of the struggling Invader. A few of the Invaders in the pod surged forward, and the guards fired a few carefully aimed resonance bolts into the pod, stunning them. There were more cries of pain, and a few of the Invaders in the pod fell.

The single Invader was dragged behind the cordon of Progenitors. Restraint cuffs were placed on its arms and legs, which automatically retracted if more than the allowed kinetic energy was expanded. If the restraints contracted the Invader would be hobbled, if it continued to struggle it would be immobilized. After a brief struggle the restraints were applied and the small Invader was hauled away.

Another wedge went into the pod to extract the second Invader. This time there was a weaker response and all the guards had to do was raise their weapons and the Invaders in the pod backed down. As before, the Invader struggled until the restraints were applied.

M'lar noticed something different this time, though. The chaotic sound modulation coming from the pods of Invaders was changing. Instead of random bursts of semi-organized sound it seemed that the pod was aligning their voices. In moments the randomness was gone and the pod had achieved a unity, with their voices lilting up and down in what had to be a widely known pattern. It seemed to be spreading, as the other corralled pods started the refrain.

He didn't know what to make of it. It was primitive, and alien. M'lar had no idea what the Invader sound modulations meant, but they obviously meant something to them. The sounds seemed to burn into his memory for some reason and he remembered them clearly, even though he had no idea of their meaning:

"We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday!
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe
We shall overcome someday!!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

M'lar used a talon on his left hand to depress the activation stud on the translator. The Commander had been a little surprised by his request to be able to communicate with the Invaders but had not turned him down. M'lar reasoned that having the two adult Invaders would do him no good unless he could tell them what he expected of them.

The two hobbled Invaders stood before him in one of the storage rooms of the second annex to the Cloning Center Crèche. Their bulbous, watery eyes were darting around, examining the medical equipment that lined the walls. They had been largely silent during their travel out of the pit and through the city. Most of their time they had spent just looking around, and occasionally the smaller one emitted a soft noise.

M'lar resonated and the small device turned the resonance field into the sound modulations the Inaders used: "Invaders. I am M'lan, Progenitor worker. Required: your cooperation. Task: feeding and care of Invader younglings."

Both of their heads snapped toward M'lar. Good, he thought, I have their attention.

He formed another resonance to explain, "Invader younglings: here. Need care. You will provide care, and knowledge. Invader: understand?"

His query was greeted by interested silence. M'lar paused and tried to think on how to make the Invaders understand what he required of them. Not wanting to waste any more time he decided the direct approach was best and he left the room. He could feel the eyes of the hobbled Invaders on him as he left. In the next room he placed the barely moving Invader youngling on a cart and wheeled it into the storage area that held the two adult Invaders. As soon as they saw it they started their own high-pitched sound modulations and gesticulation. Immediately their kinetic restraints activated and started to constrict.

This was not the reaction M'lar intended. He gestured to the Invaders and then to the youngling. He tried again. No reaction. Clearly he was not making himself understood. M'lar knew he would fail if the Invaders were immobile on the floor. That would not help him with the youngling he had, and the additional younglings that would arrive soon.

He went over toward the smaller Invader, who shrank away from him, and bent over it. With one hand he grabbed her upper torso and it immediately cried out even louder. With the other he released the kinetic restraints, which dropped to the floor. M'lar had a good hold, but the creature struggled anyway. He firmly dragged it toward the limp youngling.

M'lar used simple concepts and resonance fields and hoped it would translate into the odd and inefficient sound modulations the Invader's used. "Progenitor: not able to care for Invader youngling. Result: unhappiness for M'lar, death for youngling. Task: you will tell M'lar what is needed; you will care for youngling. Understanding?"

The small Invader he was holding looked at the youngling and then sideways at him and spoke. The translator formed a simple and pallid resonance field that M'lar understood, and it said "Yes."

He was satisfied. It was a start. "Acceptable," he said as he released the Invader.

She looked at him, then at the listless baby. Ignoring the green and blue alien at her side she picked up the infant and did her best to sooth it. The poor thing was frail, wet, fouled, and showed signs of torture. Tracie cried inside for the baby. Long ago she had stopped crying for herself. She turned toward the monster and tried to ignore the threatening and ominous equipment all around her. What did it want? And why?

Right now Tracie knew that didn't matter. The baby mattered. Steeling herself, she told the monster exactly what she needed. As she spoke the box he wore seemed to hum.

The huge green alien bug just stared at her for a moment. Then the box said, "I will get what you ask."

Then it turned and left the room, and the door snapped shut behind it.

As soon as the door shut her companion spoke up, "Get over here and get me free! I can barely move!"

Tracie looked over at him with scarcely disguised loathing. "Shut up, Jarod. You'll survive. And you know I can't get the keepers off."

"I'd never work for those bugs!" he retorted, referring to what the big Progenitor had said.

Tracie's lower lip curled. "Idiot. Did you even notice the baby? An innocent baby? I'd do almost anything to save this child's life, so hang your grand morals. This baby's almost dead!" The baby started to cough, and it was a dry cough. Its skin felt cold and clammy. That was bad.

"We need to escape! And get back to Sparta Command!" Jarod stated, a bit wildly, like he did when he started babbling.

Tracie ignored him. It was generally best when you ignored Jarod. She turned her attention back to the baby, and she hoped the bug would be back soon.

[Googlie]

Temple of Chiron - Prisoners' Compound

"Psssst... psssst "

Seng Hsui stopped in his tracks, as if sniffing the air.

"Psssst... psssst " - there it was again, coming from the prisoners' compound.

He drew his personal sidearm and went to investigate.

She was standing by the wire, clearly trying to attract his attention. Vaguely he thought her familiar, then it dawned on him. The erstwhile Garrison Commander.

Brooke was waving him over, unaware that he was the Colonel that had accepted her surrender.

"Soldier. Here. I need to talk with you."

He moved over, cautiously.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want out of here - me and my fellow Gaians. Is this how the Hive treats prisoners of war? Good grief, man, can't you see with your own eyes. These aliens are eating us., Eating us. Is this the honorable society your Chairman espouses?"

Seng shifted uncomfortably.

Yes, he knew that the Usurpers ate their conquered foes. But he'd turned a blind eye to it. After all, it wasn't like it was wholesale slaughter. Just one or two each day, out of the couple of thousand who'd populated the base.

"You know I can't do that," he replied. "But I can bring it up with the General and see if he can't stop the ritual feasting."

Brooke exploded.

"Ritual feasting? Is that all that this is to you - ritual feasting? How would you like it if it were your mother that was earmarked for tonight's ritual feast? Eh?"

Seng though briefly of his mother, the redoubtable Madame Hsui, and chuckled inwardly.
She'd prove to be a tough and stringy ,meal for any Alien, he thought.

"I said I'd bring it to the General's attention," he muttered sullenly, and prepared to leave.

"Wait," Brooke pleaded. "There's more."

"Go on," he said.

"You must have wondered where all the children were," she continued.

He nodded.

"They were on a field trip to the coast when the attack came - about 30 of them, for two weeks. That's run out now, and I'm afraid that they'll just die in the fungus fields, even though they are Gaians. And I don't want them coming back here to be a delicacy for your buggy friends."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked her.

"Give me your commlink for a few minutes and turn away -I'll relay their co-ordinates to Velvetgrass Point and see if they can effect a rescue. Assuming of course, that they are still alive."

"I can do that," he said, handing her his commlink through the mesh and turning away.

Brooke took it eagerly, and punched in some code.

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

Free Drone Central

Scott Allardyce looked up at the screen when his commlink beeped for attention.

He frowned when he saw the trace - an unknown number, emanating from Temple of Chiron and patched through Gaian Air Force, Velvetgrass Point, through GAF Headquarters at Nessus Shining, to his console at Free Drone Central.

He activated the commlink.

A stranger's face appeared, dark and somewhat blurry - that of a young woman.

"Allardyce here," he grunted. "To whom am I speaking?"

"Brooke Ward - Gaian prisoner at Temple of Chiron. Who have I reached?"

Allardyce was hitting the 'system interrogate' key even as she was replying. Her profile appeared on the screen next to her image. Ah yes. Former Garrison Commander there.

"Chief of Air Staff, Believing Drones," he replied automatically. "What can I do for you?"

Brooke hastily gave Googlie the story, and the co-ordinates where the field trip was supposed to be, then asked:

"But why have I come through to you? - I was trying to reach our air force commander at Velvetgrass."

"Long story, lady. The short answer is that you no longer have an airforce at Velvetgrass Point, and soon that base too will be in Hive or Usurper hands. But how many of you are there?"

Brooke replied:

"They have segregated the administrators and officers from the drones. The latter are still working the base under the command of the Hive officers. We in the detention center are now about 25 or so, and they're killing us off at a rate of about two a day."

Allardyce snorted. "Killing you off - how? Escape attempts?"

"No," she replied, her voice breaking. "Eating us. Apparently it's an alien thing - and the Hive officers seem powerless to stop it."

There was a long pause, the Allardyce spoke again:

"How are you contacting me? - have you unlimited access to a commlink?"

"No," Brooke replied. "I spoke with a sympathetic Hive soldier who loaned me his after I told him about our youngsters. He doesn't want to see them eaten any more than I do."

Allardyce responded:

"Can you put him on to me?"

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

Temple of Chiron

"Soldier."

Seng looked over. The woman was holding his commlink through the fence to him.

"Someone wants to talk to you."

Seng took the commlink.

"Hsui here"

His eyebrows rose when he heard:

"Ah, Colonel Hsui. Colonel Seng Hsui. And son of the renowned Civilian Marshal Hsui."

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Scott Allardyce," was the reply.

Seng shuddered. One of Chairman Yang's most implacable enemies.

The voice went on:

"I have just been apprised of the situation at Temple of Chiron, and it seems that you and your superior officers are turning a blind eye at this cannibalistic practice of the Usurpers of eating their vanquished enemies. Be aware, Colonel Hsui, that the Axis treats this as an atrocity, with you and your commanding officer as collaborators. You would do well to cause the practice to cease, lest you find yourself before a war crimes tribunal after your defeat. Or the victims of a covert assassination squad before then. Justice has a long arm, my Colonel.

"Please ask your General Peake to call me.

"Allardyce out."

The commlink went dead.

Seng stared at it thoughtfully, then looked at Brooke.

"I didn't know you had such influential friends," he commented.

"Neither did I" was her laconic reply.

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

Later that Evening

"Sir. It is really strange. How she connected to Allardyce, I mean."

Cyrus Peake looked thoughtful, as Hsui related the afternoon's conversation to him.

"That's bad news if it has gone out. I thought that this was just our dirty little secret, and that we could contain it. But I guess not now. Trouble is, Colonel, that I am powerless to stop Canla and her troops from doing it. In fact, I can't even reach her now. She is spending all her time over at the ruins of the Manifold Nexus. I doubt if she would listen to me anyway. We are very much the junior party in this alliance."

"What are we to do, then," Hsui asked.

Peake pondered the question.

About half of the administrative and officers corps had been removed 'for ritual purposes' in the 2 weeks or so since their surrender. At this attrition rate there would be none left after another two weeks.

He straightened up, and looked at Hsui.

"We must collaborate in their escape," he said simply.

"Get me Allardyce."

[Hydro]

Progenitor: Honor

Zzar waited patently. It was exceedingly rare to have an audience with Conqueror Marr, and having the audience in the command center was unheard of. The command center was the nexus of the Usurper faction, and only most senior of the planner and military castes were allowed to enter, and only the most trusted advisors participated in planning and strategy. In fact, it was possible that Conqueror Marr had no advisors and that he formulated his vision by himself. Zzar suspected that Conqueror Marr kept his own counsel, and that many of the planning sessions with his senior advisors were more likely to have The Conqueror telling his planners and strategists what he wanted, and when. After all, he was Conqueror Marr.

Even though it was an honor to be called to an audience Zzar felt his ability to control his restlessness and questions diminish as the hours passed. He was standing in his proscribed place, or, rather, his image was standing in its proscribed place. Zzar was actually in Progenitor: Honor, as he had been for the 37 frustrating day-cycles since the Invader city had been conquered. Like all Progenitors he had great stamina and could continue almost any physical activity as long as was required, as long as he was willing to pay the price at a later time in a medical rejuvenation center to renew metabolized energy reserves and organs. He was nowhere near that level yet, and he knew he would have to wait for the great Conqueror for at least several days before his stamina would be so tested.

So, he waited.

Just because he was almost motionless did not mean he did not take the opportunity to examine his surroundings. After all, he had never been in the Usurper command center before and he might never again have this opportunity as a mere junior Conqueror. The room itself was cavernous, with graceful arcing struts along the walls and throughout the chamber that extended into the unlighted ceiling, as was the Progenitor style. A number of the struts seemed to have stopped growing, and they terminated near the floor to above the height of a Conqueror. Still others seemed to have grown together forming a freestanding series of arches. Between the struts, arced pillars, and arches were raised daises, which had low, curved railing surrounding them. Above the daises were pillars that curved inward in such a way that they looked like incomplete arches.

These daises were what drew Zzar's attention, since these were the three primary and innumerable secondary tactical and strategic displays. The smaller holos, flat screens, and diagnostics cycled through images so fast that Zzar could only get a glimmer of what they displayed. In general, they seemed to show Progenitor war material and their specifications, with direct comparisons to their Invader equivalents. Zzar ignored these since he was now somewhat familiar with the Invaders and their ability to resist. What caught Zzar's eye, however, with the three main battle displays. Centered in middle of the cavernous room, these displays could either be used to see the battles from any distance the observer desired, even to the point of joining a battle-in-progress. From his vantage point as a projected holo he could only see the strategic picture. In the first was an oblique view of Progenitor: Honor, a summary of Progenitor forces there, and the nearest Invader cities. In this display the Invader Spartan's primary city was to the west. Zzar was displeased to notice that it now held fully fifteen times the attack and defense forces it had possessed when he had captured the nearby two Invader cities over 30 day cycles ago. Conquer Marr had ordered overwhelming reinforcements so the Invaders could be crushed in one blow, reducing their ability and will to resist. Zzar had thought that this policy was ill advised, but had taken his orders without complaint or comment. After all, the orders had come from the Conqueror.

The second display was far more interesting, and it came to Zzar as something of a shock. In this image there was a strange, rounded Invader city that rose from a plain of fungus and Invader vegetation. The city itself was an unnatural brown and green, and it looked disturbingly like one of the Invader trees that were in constant ecological warfare with the fungus. Where the fungus was not present the tall Invader trees infected the land surface, creating an unwholesome blending of Manifold 6 and Invader ecosystems. The city and its environment were just background to Zzar's eyes since the city was surrounded to the east by Progenitor infantry. Further back were more infantry, forming a second rank . At a distance were the troops of their ally Invader Yang. Flying over the city were a small number of Progenitor Gnat aircraft and some of the Invader Yang. All aircraft were now returning to the captured city Temple of Chiron, and they obviously been busy reducing the defenders of the hostile Invader city to ashes.

Further toward the back of the room, and almost outside of Zzar's ability to gather any information, was the third display. It showed yet another set of Invader cities, all of them gleaming and iridescent odd geometric shapes, and each of these cities seemed to be reaching toward the sky. There were no Progenitor troops near it, but scrolling icons in the upper portion of the holo indicated these Invader cities were to be razed, completely, although it was not apparent how, or why.

After examining what he could of the battle displays a few things struck Zzar. First, he had not been informed of the second battle force that was attacking the other Invaders. These Invaders had some disturbing Caretaker-like proclivities according to reports he had read of them. That a second battle force was attacking was not important or surprising since the Conqueror will keep his own consul and would not be likely to ask opinions of or consult with a lowly junior Conqueror almost fresh out of the cloning vats. It appeared that the bulk of the mobile Progenitor infantry was committed to that engagement, along with many of their attack aircraft. Zzar sighed to himself, wistfully wishing that more of the invaluable Gnats had been assigned to his strike. Now he knew why - they were committed at another front. Second, their ally Invader Yang was not attacking the Caretaker-like Invaders. This struck Zzar as very strange, since to him it would make more sense to make the Invaders fight each other than spend Progenitor blood in exterminating them. The Conquer invariably will have his reasons. Third, and most important, it was clear that the Conqueror was initiating a two, and possibly three, front war. Consulting his ancient faces and aspects on battle doctrine, all of these long passed wise Progenitors agreed that this was not a wise strategy. Did the Conqueror know or understand something that was not apparent? Was there some other obscure objective? Were there more military forces available, or were more being manufactured?

Zzar maintained is somber and respectful visage, but his questions swirled in his mind as he waited.

The room brightened. Zzar knew the Conqueror was entering.

There he was. He wore no battle sash since as supreme commander he transcended any rank or insignia. The lower combat spurs on his face shield were enameled black, and his goring tusks were polished and exquisitely maintained. He wore his ceremonial combat armor over his chitin, as all Progenitor Conquerors do when at war. And, proudly displayed on his forehead was his clan designation: the Usurpers, who had been at war with the Caretakers and their allies for thousands of years.

Zzar's image bowed before Conqueror Marr.

"Conqueror Zzar," Conqueror Marr resonated to acknowledge his sub commander.

"Great Conqueror Marr," he altered back, choosing a third level submissive harmonic to assert his own station and clearly state Conquer Marr's ultimate and total authority.

Marr did not bother to dip his tusks, even slightly, in return. "You are ordered to attack the Invader Spartan's primary city immediately." He turned and walked to the nearest battle display, ascended the dais, and waved is right talon. Zzar's image followed. A holo simulation started.

"We have postponed attacking the Invader Spartan's primary city so that we could gather our forces, and so the Invader's could gather theirs. Our information from Invader Yang indicates that 70% of the mobile military units of the Spartans are currently at their primary."

A holo showed the Invader's primary battle units, all of which looked bulky and inefficient, and inelegant, to Zzar's eyes. Many were infantry, but most were their fast attack mobile units. The Invaders did not have hovercraft technology and had to rely on primitive wheeled technology. They had some aircraft, all of which was slow and technologically obsolete by Progenitor standards. In addition to that there were numerous defensive units. The result was that there were even more defensive and offensive units than Zzar expected, with more arriving every day either over land, by air, or via air drop.

"Their defenses are inadequate to withstand our forces, and we will destroy most of their military in one fell stroke, and with their fall nothing will stand in our way of total conquest of Manifold 6. You will remove their air defense units first with the three Gnat interceptor assigned to your field of battle."

Zzar looked at the tally of the alien defenders and noted that the three Gnats would not be sufficient to remove all air defenses, which was both on air craft and their mobile ground units.

"Conqueror, it appears…" Zzar started.

Marr swiveled toward Zzar. "Do not interrupt. To do so is above both your ability and your station."

Zzar retreated, chastised. He realized this was not a discussion.

Marr turned back toward his simulation. "With the air defense eliminated the Battle Ogres will secure the bunker here," he resonated, and pointing at the bunker between Honor: Progenitor and the target Invader city, lit with the alien icon 'Sparta Command'. "Then you will proceed with the rest of the Ogres and assault the city's defenders." The tactical map showed the Ogres using their firepower to systematically blast their way into and through the city as the Invader defenders filed, one by one, onto the field of battle to be destroyed.

Numerous questions and concerns leapt into Zzar's mind. There would be heavy and permanent damage to the Ogres in such an assault, since they had no way of repairing the ancient mechs. And, by the time they arrived at the city they would have depleted their energy reserves, and they would either be unable to attack or attack a less then full strength. They would also be vulnerable to counterattack. What was most alarming was that Zzar knew that these Spartan Invaders did not obey Progenitor rules of combat, and they would not file onto the field of battle to engage in honorable combat. They were sneaky and were not to be trusted, and they had their own indecipherable rules.

What Marr showed indicated he either did not know of these attributes, knew of them but didn't care, or that he thought that they were irrelevant. Zzar knew the Conqueror was not careless, nor was he ill informed. He must view the Progenitor firepower advantage to be so overwhelming to that anything the Invaders might try would not be effective.

Zzar's feeling of unease grew.

"The Deathspheres will be held in reserve, as will the attack Gnats. The Interceptors will ensure the Ogres can not be attacked by the defenders."

Zzar thought, Oh, of course. However, it still seemed dangerous to assault with such slow units. Even so, something about Marr's assurance gave Zzar pause. A fatal flaw. What was it?

"Your Deathsphere will enter and take the city after the last Invaders are destroyed. As at Progenitor: Honor, you are to exterminate almost all of the Invader population, keeping some for whatever labor they might be good for and for the Challenge Chamber. Set up cloning facilities at once. Production is to be geared toward defensive units to free up attack units."

The holo morphed into an oblique plan view strategic map. Conqueror Marr pointed to the Spartan primary city, now captured in the simulation. "You will then move here and here," he stated, pointing at the next cities to the west. The Invader Spartans ability to be resist will be removed, and they will be destroyed within 30 day cycles."

Conquer Marr turned toward his young officer Zzar. "Do you understand your orders?"

"Yes, Conqueror. It shall be done," he resonated. Zzar clearly understood, even if he had a myriad of questions and concerns.

Conqueror Marr expanded his chest cavity as he inhaled, making him appear larger. Zzar knew that he was asserting dominance and accepted it.

"Dismissed. Bring glory to the Progenitors, and to the Usurpers," Conqueror Judaa Marr stated.

Abruptly the holo ended, and Zzar was in his Deathsphere Alpha.

His orders were clear.

He would obey.