Everything about the Beri Cultural Festival is, in one way or another, part of pack maneuvering. The very concept: a statement that the Plousios is celebrating the customs of the crew and Lady Mosaic's former home, but that it is the Silver Divers who are the defenders of those customs. The fried flatbreads and noodles, made under a salvaged sign which says DOL: proof that plunder-raids on the agricultural systems were successful and that Plundering Fang is on the back foot. The incense wreathing the entire festival in synthetic Celebration and Victory: evidence that Gemini is still listening to Ember, at least for now. The location, in the middle of Second Hall, stretching from wall to mottled wall in a sea of tents and poles and scavenged decorations: a demonstration of the Silver Divers' command of the ship. The prisoners attending to frying food and hosting games and carrying burdens for the grinning Ceronians: an object lesson in the hierarchy of conquest, and a boost to morale to boot. And the Ceronians themselves, dressed in silk and mail, Corvii-feather capes and glimmering veils: Mosaic's personal army, here to serve her with prejudice and initiative.

Ember herself has added a collar to her regalia, with a decorative chain connected to her left vambrace. She is bare of perfume, but the maid with her bears an oversized bouquet of small flowers, prizes from small plots of precious earth. Her skirt is daringly split, her eyes are painted the deep purple of a thick-churned nebula, and her lips beneath the veil are dark and rich. (The maid's skirt is daringly short, and her chains are as decorative and intended for use as Ember's own.) She bears a long knife at her side, and her left hand is sheathed in silver wire and stolen jewels. She feigns nonchalance, but her tail and ears betray her anticipation, her desire for praise, her hope that Mosaic might look at everything she did in service to the ship, in service to her, and see a heroine. The right choice to lead the Silver Divers for the sake of the ship, for the sake of victory, for the sake of her.

But the part that will show her love the most? The fireworks. Sagetip promised low noise, high color: just for you, Mosaic, so the crack doesn't hurt your ears, so that you can watch the falling embers with wide pupils and a twitching tail, so that you can be pleasantly overwhelmed and not clamping your hands over your ears. The favor owed for that isn't cheap, either. A gift, a spectacle, a date, and an attempt to recover as much of your town as possible.

Doesn't it tell you that you are loved, Mosaic? Doesn't it all say that Ember loves you? That your knight has been everything you could have asked of her?

Huh. It's kind of flattering to think that they count as an existential threat. You wouldn't think just one ship would merit that.

Granted, yeah, it's an imperial warship. Which means basically full access to the galaxy, without needing to stay coastal and use the regular shipping lanes. Full of Ceronians and three-quarter--

Actually, you know what, retiring that joke. The Pix are more than just tinier Ceronians. If there's anybody who oughtta know that, it's her.

Buncha clingy rapscallions. Fuck, she doesn't know what she'd do without them.

Anyway. Imperial warship with access to the entire galaxy, full of two full complements of warrior servitors, as well as seemingly half-a-planet's worth of support servitors. All led, she just knows people will assume, by a knight. Which is fair, because, you know, they still haven't spent five seconds with Mosaic.

God, she wishes--

Well, she doesn't wish she could go home. But she kind of wishes she could see the look on Merilt's face if she ever found out. Fuck, they're an existential threat.

Which means, of course, the naturally disproportionate response.

Honestly, she kind of wishes she could talk to the Oracle again. Talk about cats. She's met this super cool one recently, you know?

"So running doesn't work, then. We can't provide nearly the level of sacrifice they can. If they want to find us, they will. Do we have intel on the new drone species? How hard would it be to get someone less psychopathic into the role? Any counter-assassination prospects? What options do we have that don't end with us swarmed with drones?"

"I'm not asking you to stop! I'm, I don't!"

Bella thrashes for a moment, old tensions and even older arguments flaring up and pouring new strength into her body. But like a breath on the wind it passes, and she sags again until all she can do is keep walking. Left leg forward, press weight, flinch when the heat lances through her knee. Right leg lurches forward to compensate. It sucks. But there's nothing else for her to occupy the moment with.

"...Gods. If it's gonna be like this, just fucking drop me here. I'll drag myself the rest of the way back. I'm so sick and tired of hearing that voice tell me how wrong I am. I have never given a single shit about this journey, ok? It's only ever been about you."

Her mismatched eyes are slightly crossed when she forces her head back up to look the Princess head on again. All the trembling effort in the world can't make them focus, can't make the person in front of her unblur. She's slipping into sleep even now. Only one last chance to say it.

"It's fine" Bella's voice cracks, "I just want... one last chance. To give you anything else to be before I die. That's why you have... to..."

And then she is sliding, slurring into the arms of the Oneiroi. Her ear twitches to catch half a sentence in reply to carry down into her dreams.

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

Grim faced and ashen, Bella watches a parade of ghosts. Here is the town she is meant to love. Here are the warriors of Ceron who have learned not to spit ashes at the sound of her name. Her name. Her name. What they tell her is her name.

She is able to walk again. She can stand up straight under her own power, if little else. Her arm is still a twisted lump, though it is growing back together with prickling waves of discomfort that make it through the nerves she deadened to protect herself. She tried to stuff herself into one of Mosaic's suits before she answered the summons, but it was ill fitting garbage despite being made for the same body, supposedly.

She tore the shirt off her body in disgust, and left only the jacket hanging open to cover her torso. There's nothing left of her old softness but even so it took this level of display to make her not feel fat. Her muscles twitch with every step, and she is constantly reaching toward the shorter end of this obnoxious, uneven jacket to keep it from flapping open and exposing her to everyone. Her glare withers everyone who tries to look.

But now she walks. She sniffs at every offered food, and holds it in her hands to stare at it until she's pulled apart the secrets of its creation in case she needs or wants to make it herself in the future. She eats almost none of it but just hands it off to someone else before she's off again to the next sight. The next sound. The next smell.

She knows that crumbling building. She knows this patch of flowers. She knows every little shred of the town of Beri that has been gathered on the Plousios, and it galls her. These are stolen memories that belong to someone better. Someone who was brave enough to at least try to be a hero. But all Bella could be is herself. Her tail thrashes behind her as she walks.

It wasn't meant to be like this; the Lethe betrayed her. Now there are fireworks that burst in fantastic colors so bright they almost blind her still-adjusting eyes, but quiet enough that the gesture moves her to tears anyway. Bella watches Ember watching her right back, and for the first time her expression softens. She sniffs at the air once in caution, and once in curiosity. The various honeyed scents of besotted love are obvious, but there's a waft of something beneath them that escapes her. Bella shakes her head.

She doesn't deserve this. She cannot be Mosaic. But do any of these people deserve to lose her, even so?

"...You know, someone told me once that fireworks are something you can't truly enjoy without a glass of wine. What've we got for," she clears her throat, "That is, uh. Did you find treasure enough for this as well?"

Fuck.

Bella!

When you wake from your dreams, you are warm and loved and wrapped in blankets. Everything has been arranged for your care, exactly the way you once did it for Redana.

But you are alone.

Dyssia!

Brightberry's wing-projection flickers and she shows a holographic image of a servitor with the aspect of a mayfly; beautiful, glittering, chromatic, frail. "The Summerkind," she said. "Lifespan, one month. They are the first big breakthrough in the weaponisation of Demeter's Law. Upon death, rather than erupting into a variety of animal forms they spawn a clutch of new Summerkind eggs - the size of which is dependent on how many pieces their corpse is blown into. A full sized egg matures rapidly and achieves hatching within eight hours, at which point the Summerkind emerges in a frenzied, adrenaline-fueled state. After surviving for one day the adrenal urges cool into normal intellect, after surviving for one week the Summerkind has obtained full tactical proficiency, and after three weeks they have learned enough to become a first rate strategos, combat veteran or esoteric technician. Then," she made a face, "they die. Their corpse immediately returns to the egg for immediate resumption of the cycle."

"From what I've seen, they're unreal fast," she said. "Unparalleled evasion instincts, and they learn like Ikarani Assassins. Their eggs are tough enough to be fired from orbit and take dedicated effort to dismember. Blend one into 1cm chunks and it'll take about three years to regenerate to full size, but mercifully only one will hatch, they don't multiply that way. And I can't emphasize this enough: these are servitors, not drones. They're fully intelligent, individual, capable people whose life cycle resembles psychotic attack drones. Biomancers have been trying to beat Dr. Ceron's work for three eras now - and rumour is that Bronze was a contemporary of hers - but this could genuinely be it."

"As far as assassinating Liquid Bronze," she sighed. "Problem is that he's the guy who makes assassins, it's what got him to the position of Biomancer-General in the first place. He was the mind behind the original Ikarani concept and collaborated on the creation of the other variants. I've been pulsing data on him while we've been talking and more and more my recommendation is to crash the Plousios into a star and hope he doesn't decide to follow us in."

Dolce!

Blood and paper. These have been sacred to Artemis for a long time.

She is the Goddess of Civilian Violence, of murder between individuals outside the bounds of war or insurrection. This is something that must be managed. The hands of a killer must be bound in oaths, prayer-ribbons pulled tight to narrow them into a fraction of the possibility space. A slip, a leak, a death unwritten or unchanneled by divine law threatens a whole different world: the eternal predatory natural cycle of all against all. The Goddess of the Hunt defines herself in separation to the Goddess of the Harvest. And so, the ritual.

It will be bloody. A head must be hewn off and the stasis field must be lowered for that to happen. While the outcome is certain, it will be neither pleasant or without risk. Then, bloodstained paperwork must be filled out, the dark work required to explain to the Goddess that this is not a descent into madness and anarchy. Then, the arrow can at last be released again.

Do you help with the severing? It is not asked for or required; the difference will be a single bloody scar across the Assassin's face, but no more. Do you help with the paperwork? It is not asked for or required; the difference will be the chance to see her true name signed in triplicate: Sanalessa, of the New Yakanov Explorager Fleet. Do you wish her goodbye afterwards? It will be the chance to see her smile with an ageless regret, not knowing if, given the choice, she would choose between freedom or the chemical ascension of purpose fulfilled.

Ember is silent for a little longer than usual, studying Mosaic. Some instinct itches in the back of her head, warning about the risk of losing a pack member to hidden injury or sickness. Because Mosaic is moving differently, even though underneath, she smells the same. The mismatch is disquieting.

"...we have some. I kept a bottle of something white. We don't have fresh seawater to add to it, but I think we'll be able to fill some vats when we arrive. Bucca!" The knight turns to the captive maid, a doe-eyed youth seized from the ranks of the Slitted's administrative corps, and tilts her chin up with one gauntleted hand. "Fetch~" (The rumble underlying her voice is playful, a warning that any impudence would be met with escalation, but done for Bucca's sake as much as for Mosaic's. It is necessary for the Alpha to be domineering and forceful, but the real Ember lies in the shallows underneath.)

"B-but I don't want to get into the details yet," she adds, turning her attention fully back to her lover. A gentle touch to the arm that holds the jacket together, a release of Affection, her purple-rimmed eyes looking into Mosaic's own. "I've got it. And you don't need to worry. You have earned this, sunlight. We're here, free and ready to fight, because you convinced us all to work together. You don't need to carry everyone's burdens tonight. Not tonight. Not here. I have everything under control, and once your new maid gets back with the wine, we can... go and watch the fireworks from somewhere private?"

She can't hide the wagging, or the hopeful note in her voice. It's been hectic ever since the Plousios launched, long nights alone, and details from before the fight against the Slitted are fuzzy and hard to hold onto, but they haven't had a night together, just for themselves. Not since the launch.

To not help with the beheading is to make her drive a knife through her own flesh without another soul to help carry that weight. So he offers to man the controls. The sound is remarkably akin to working with a fresh bird. He will remember that.

To not help with the paperwork is to demand she perfectly execute the bureaucratic maneuver that will decide her fate while her own blood dries on her sleeves. So he offers his eyes to her cause. The forms are exacting, yet fewer than he would have expected. This is what it takes to end a life. He will remember that.

She did not ask for his help. She is one of the galaxy’s deadliest warriors, brilliant in her thinking, confident in her bearing, and willing to do whatever it takes to live. No part of this would have been too much for her, or else she would have asked. But Dolce has seen far too many people suffering, people whose names and voices he knew, and he could not even offer his presence. Just sympathies, thrown from a distance. If there’s opportunity and means to lend to a hand, he will take that opportunity, as those do not happen as often as you might think or like.

To not say goodbye is unthinkable.

“Take care.” He offers his hand, without hesitation, hiding the exhaustion creeping through him “I will make offerings for a safe flight.”

Her smile as she clasps his hand is answer enough. She knows what she will wake to. She knows not if she would rather be the severed head. She is grateful, perhaps, that she has no choice in the matter.

Does she know the choice he will face, when her coffin drifts into the distance? He hopes she does. It would feel like a trick, otherwise. As it stands, he sends an Assassin back from whence she came, to her unfinished business and a target who ought not to die like this. He cannot sit back and pretend that what happens to the Royal Architect is none of-

Grief seizes a thought, and flings it to the fore.

“...the name on your bones is the Royal Architect, yes?” He pauses, still holding her hand. “That was the name on all of the forms we signed. There was never an actual name. Just a title. So, is that what’s written on your bones as well?”

Something in his voice gives her pause. She closes her eyes, concentrates, and nods. “I have never seen the full nature of my curse. But as far as I can tell, yes, that is the name.”

Of course. Of course it was. “I though it was strange that Artemis would permit a contract with no name. But a title is good enough here. There is no one else who can do the Royal Architect’s job. He is the only one that title can apply to, because he is irreplaceable. The contract will never target anyone else, so it’s as good as a name, and much easier to come by, I imagine.”

“Indeed. Much, much easier. But why should it matter what name I bear?”

“Please, correct me if I am wrong…” It was an idea so foolish, it had no business being said. But was it really the most foolish thing he’d done all day? “But if the Royal Architect were to abdicate his position and leave the Skies entirely by the time you wake, would that not nullify the contract?”

The only sound in the hangar was the faint crackling of crystal energy. Not even breath stirred the air. “You realize,” she says, gently. “That such a thing would be tantamount to the fall of the Skies themselves? That such a contingency was not accounted for, because it would mean far grander disasters were at hand?” She is one of the galaxy’s deadliest warriors, brilliant in her thinking, confident in her bearing, and desperate, desperate to live.

Does she see the thin thread of hope he clings to?

“Yes. Yes, I don’t know exactly how it would happen. But,” he lays his other hand gently over hers, and squeezes lightly. “I would really rather no one else get killed.”

That--

She hasn't felt this sick since she stood from a desk and beheld Aphrodite holding her triumph.

Behold, the triumphs of biomancy!

It isn't even from the perspective of trying to fight that, although, holy shit, we gotta talk about that. It's--

When you die, is the you that's reborn the same you as the one that died? Would they need Ikarani-fast memories and learning if they did? They're servitors--Is each one a separate soul? Are you sharing one soul with hundreds--millions--of the same-but-different yous that came before?

Servitors, with lifetime measured in weeks. Weeks, instead of--

You don't have to do this! Making their lives so short is, is, is pointlessly cruel! Is it purely for the Ikarani learning? Is it so they do not realize their plight and rise? Can't be a threat if any one given leader is gone in a month!

She has to lean against something, just to catch her breath. Let her heart stop hammering, stop beating with the--

A month! A month, for real? You can't-- Fucking monstrous--

She blinks hard, and realizes tears are there, squeezing from the corners.

"We have to--"

Dyssia swallows, hard, forces the knot down her throat and tries again.

"We can't let Liquid Bronze have them."

And again, rushing, as if to clarify:

"Not because they're a threat, because holy shit are they a threat. But Liquid Bronze's made a self-destructing, self-genociding, race of servitors."

The immensity of the task ahead is--

How do you save everyone? You can kidnap some, raise them as best you can, give them happiness, give them support, raise them as people, raise them as, as, not as godsdamn weapons, not as disposable self-genociding trash, with--

But Liquid Bronze still has the mold! Still has the secret to making them! To creating people, born to die, born to explode, born to--

She swallows again.

"Eight hours. Eight hours to finish the battle, gather the eggs, escape, and start to raise a new generation. We have to try."

Damn these blankets. The warmth that seeps into her bones, the softness tickles her fur and skin with every little breath she takes, the way they have been arranged into a safe little nest that is impossible to escape from. They steal her strength. They demand she rest. They even smell correct: the exact softeners, cleaning agents, and perfumes that she used to use back when this was her job.

Bella groans as she drags herself out of the cocoon the Princess had wove for her. It isn't right. Home is ahead of her now, not behind.

"This isn't over, Mynx..."

*********

"Seawater?"

Bella squeezes her temple. Memories tangle themselves into knots that pull on her head with the same painful squeezing as matted hair against her scalp. What is hers? What is Mosaic's? She shakes her head, and sniffs away her own stupid question. In the time it takes her to recover the maid girl has already run off before she can be told not to bother.

She stiffens at the brush of the hand against her arm. But she does not flinch away.

"...I'll have to teach you some other time about proper vintages. But it's old, old knowledge and we don't have any time for that. No time for anything really. I'll give you a toast, but after that I--"

The hand pulls away. Bella's arm falls to her side, and her jacket flops open. She stares into the hurt, almost reproachful look on the Ceronian girl's face and the wagging tail that has since fallen still and silent. She glares at Ember, trying to crush her with nothing but the force that emanates from her eyes. But there are more memories in the shock and the hurt, and they pull on Bella's shoulders like chains.

"Ember for the love of fuck, do you not understand how much danger we're in? This stupid rustbucket is older than the Azure Skies! It is huge and it can go anywhere but it is falling to fucking pieces from the inside and who do we have to keep it stuck together? Nobody! There is never a night off, don't you get it? If I'm not organizing everything and keeping us afloat, we die. I don't know if we implode in an asteroid cluster or get eaten by a leviathan or just plain got by the wounded super empire we've gone and pissed off but whatever catches us first will kill us in an instant! And after I killed the Crystal Knight in a hunt I'm not exactly eager to find out what Demeter'll do to my body when she gets it. Just... fuck! You're always like this! It's all excitement and adventure to you but you never once stop and think about--"

Bella's eyes open wide. Her mouth falls open in shock. Her arm shoots out and she just manages to catch Ember by the wrist in time to keep her from dashing off. Her grip is iron, but the pressure of her thumb against that slender wrist is as tender as she knows how to let it be. Her head droops as her shoulder slump forward. This sting in her chest is going to kill her. This shame. That's not Redana, you dipshit.

"No. I'm... I'm sorry," her voice is made soft and soothing by the pressure of her guilt, "Fuck. I've been dreaming for five years, it never occurred to me that I'd also need to rest. But you're right. If I break I can't hold anyone up. Vesper is counting on me. And Belja- I mean, and Gemini, and Taurus too after I made her all those promises. And Quajl and all of Beri and even Princess Redana, though she doesn't know it yet. And you, obviously. You... kept your promise. You came back. You even brought me a... nnnngh, maid. I'll reward that. I have to. Ok then. One night, with wine and fireworks and just the two of us. Make it count."

The glare is back again. But this time, Bella puts just enough smirk to it that she stops seeming cruel. The stubborn, invincible aura of Mosaic is fucking exhausting to maintain, but it's what honor and a mountain of corpses and mistakes under her feet demand. Just one night. Please let it be enough.

Bella and Ember!

The celebration will be pathetic. The Imperium of old crunched stars into pulsars to mark the ascension of a new Emperor. The Endless Azure Skies has staged entire apocalyptic battles of millions of servitors across an entire planet for the spectacle of it, the flash-flares of plasma detonations visible from orbit. The fireworks from the ascension of the Shah are still detonating fifty years later. Your party will have whatever water-soaked garbage can be dragged up from the hold, and whatever conjurations Quajl and the Azura magi are able to scrape together on short notice.

Which is to say, for those with unjaded eyes it will be the greatest show in the galaxy.

Dyssia!

"No, we're not going to do that," said Brightberry, snapping her wings closed.

It's fucking weird to hear that from an artificial lifeform. Normally a servitor will walk to the moon rather than deny a direct request but - well, the Crystal Dragons are different. These are creatures of Zeus, a biosilicate circumvention of the the Flux Curse. Zeus decreed that civilization was no longer entitled to mastery of electrical life, and so by necessity the Azura are not the masters of the Crystal Dragons. They have to treat them as equals, or sometimes even superiors - something which a great many Azura are flatly incapable of, no matter how useful the technology.

Even for you, it stings a little. Not your fault, just where you're from.

"We've got one professional Publica Legion, a half Legion of Ceronians, and six thousand random civilians," said Brightberry. "Liquid Bronze's personal bodyguard is twenty Legions, and Mars knows how many more he'd bring if he felt serious. He could put a million soldiers and drones under arms on short notice if he felt like it, and maybe fifty million if he took his time. A campaign against him would be measured in decades and the casualties would be measured in planets. We survive this by being not worth his time, not by trying to make off with his magnum opus."

There's an inflexibility to her voice here. She doesn't need to say it directly for you to know there's a red line here: she's not going to stick around for this fight if you choose to pick it.

Dolce!

A quick review of scale: The Royal Architect's departure would not mean the fall of the Endless Azure Skies. It would scarcely be an embarrassment. The Architect is a useful curiosity, a relic of a previous age, and a personal asset and ally of the Shah. His death or departure would cause turmoil on Capitas and potentially a coup. It would be locally apocalyptic, with economies collapsing and alliances falling apart and an entire sector might become unstable. But the Fall of the Skies? That would be like suggesting Rome would fall if an earthquake tumbled the Hagia Sophia.

But for all that, to the people crushed by the rubble, it might indeed seem like the Skies are falling.

But Sanalessa will not hear of the plan any further. There are evasions of her duty she can countenance, and evasions that will drive her back into her familiar murderous rage - and you have become familiar enough with her warning signs to know when you approach dangerous ground. This is not to say that you are wrong or the plan won't work, simply that she cannot be party to it. She must start from the position that one person must be killed.

So it is you left alone with pen and ink, once again. You have two letters to write: to the Architect, and to Vasilia. And it is a kindness that, for all its evil, the Endless Azure Skies has an enormous and well funded postal service.

"This here? Tonight? This has got to be the greatest show in the galaxy."

Ember has no concept of personal space. Not with Mosaic. Not when they finally have time to themselves for the first time since they left Beri. Not with her hands, which are full, but with her shoulder, her thigh, her head, her breath. And perhaps Mosaic snapping at her is part of it. What Ceronian wouldn't want reassurance, to smother bad feelings in affection, to make sure that the outburst is forgotten and buried for at least a night?

(That's the problem with dating a demigoddess. Her displeasure, especially when pointed at you, is terrifying. A campfire must be put out completely, not allowed to catch again while no one is watching.)

"Because we are here. All of us. Well." Her ears droop. "Almost all of us. I wish Dolce- you remember him? I wish he was here for the cooking, at least. Amazing seasoning. He always made infiltrating Beri a delight. I wish he'd made it out." She rests her head on that statuesque shoulder, sinks into the safety of the most frightening and most beautiful woman she knows.

"Sorry. Sorry. I just... I wish the Azure Skies could see this and understand. Why we're not going to die. Why we're going to win in the end. All of this. All of us. Because we have you, and we have each other, and we have-- are you actually not going to touch the flatbread?" Begging eyes are tactically deployed. Not for her, but for Mosaic's sake. "If you don't eat something, I'll, I'll... I won't kiss you, so there!" (It would be impossible for her to hold to this. But it's the only card she can think to play.)

Her sword lies beside her in its sheath, close enough to hand to draw, but set aside all the same. Fireworks crack silently overhead. She nestles the small warmth of her body into Mosaic's own, trying to ignore the yipping in the back of her mind, the one that says there's still something wrong with this perfect moment.

After all, isn't it?

Bella clamps a hand under Ember's jaw before she can add anymore words to what should be a silent display of pyrotechnics. She feels her chest squish against Ember's back as she leans forward, warm skin pressing against a cool jacket. Her stomach clenches; hair tumbles over her shoulder and down Ember's face. Her finger press up as her neck and shoulders curl down, and their mouths meet in the middle.

There is a struggle, at the start. Startled grunts melt into moans and the strain she feels against her arms lasts only a moment or two before all of that weight is sinking into her, instead. kiss is burning hot and dripping wet. It tastes of flatbread and cheap wine, and it makes Bella's tail curl at the tip. She pulls away as her injured hand starts to twitch and curl in on itself.

She forces her breathing to stay steady, so that her heart will not flutter and betray her. She forces her jaw to stay loose, so that her teeth will not clench and give her away. She forces her eyes to stay shut, so that Ember can't look into them and see all of the conflict and pain that is welling up inside her chest like a storm. When they part she turns and watches the fireworks, pulling Ember inside of her jacket. Her good hand presses two claws on the inside of Ember's thigh, and traces them softly up and down. Her lips curl upward, though they don't quite manage a smile.

"Moron," she says, "What good's your threat now?"

All the answer she gets is a flush of warmth, a flustered giggle that's fighting with a sigh, and the thumping of a tail. But there is tension in both bodies that cannot be willed or massaged away. The air is filled with intoxicating musk tinged through with bitter sweats and salts that scream nerves. Fuck. It's just not good enough.

Bella pulls Ember closer against her body, wrapping her with both arms tight enough to prevent movement. No food, no drink, no anything but sitting and watching and feeling their breathing slowly sync. It's... wrong. To steal her like this. But watching Ember's golden hair grow increasingly messy, she can't help but think it. Mosaic turned out to have pretty good taste.

"Hey." Bella's voice cuts through the silence, "Do you think... I'm the only one of me? Forget about the demigod thing for a second. I am still a Servitor. Do you think my species was discontinued? Am I what's left? I'd just, mmmrn. It'd be nice to know what home looks like. Or family for that matter. All I've ever had is what I could scrape together for myself. It's not like you and your pack. Even where I came from, nobody had my face. I mean... whatever.

"How'd you get these things so quiet, anyway? I've never been able to get this close before."

Bella unhooks an arm so she can reach for her glass. She picks it up between three fingers, swirls the glass and sniffs. See, Ember? Like this. The vintage is bland by her standards, but the taste was never the point of asking for it in the first place.

We wouldn't be coming to him, she wants to say. She's not suicidal, not stupid, she knows that assaulting his stronghold is insane.

But… If we're talking about them being deployed against us, then we don't have to. If they're a concern, it's because we worry he might send them against us. That means that all we have to do is survive one battle in good enough condition to pick up as many as we can on the way out.

If. If we survive. Fuck, she hates that word.

If. Not survive, obviously. Survive is a great word, If is less good. If means--

Reality sucks, you know that? She always knew they were fighting a losing battle, but hearing it laid out in numbers by someone who's much better at numbers than her really highlights it, lays it bare.

They're not a threat!

But they are. Not because the crew of the Plousios is a military power, but because they're a cultural threat. They represent a chance of something different, an idea apart from empire. Let one idea grow, and suddenly people get the idea that the status quo might be possible to change.

No matter how it might feel on the other end, for the ones who have to do the changing.

Surely missing one or two is--Liquid Bronze wouldn't even notice, right? They're insignificant to him, disposable, he proves it by how he made them.

But they're also his magnum opus. Losing even one is to set loose a new, uncontrollable warrior servitor species to rival the Ceronians.

How like an Azura to make a weapon with a built-in casus belli.

Psh. Like they fuckin' need one, right now. Planet lost, town stolen, knight dead, rogue servitors in an imperial ship about to go who the fuck knows where, least of all her.

Through a star, apparently.

It's the right thing to help them. It is! It one-hundred-percent is the moral thing to do.

And it's--

It's not impossible, insists the treacherous mental censor. You could pull it off.

All it would cost you is everything, but it could be done. It's the right thing to do.

It'd be suicidal to pursue it. Destructive, not to just herself, but to everyone who follows her. All of her Pix? Gone. Her newfound friends? Dead, to no end. An angry mosquito, hurling itself and everyone they care about at a bug zapper in a last, meaningless 'fuck you' to the universe.

It still reeks of cowardice to her own mind, though.

It'd mean losing Brightberry.

"I assume we'd survive blasting through a star," she grudgingly says, at last. "Make us hard to follow, or at least worth leaving alone."

To the Royal Architect,

I will tell you everything I have learned, everything I have done, and what I now plan to do since I have left your home, by the name of Zeus whose hospitality you invoked.

Please do read this entire letter first.

I was able to converse with the Assassin, after much difficulty. Her wish was that even some small part of her could live, without the curse written into her bones. Which is why her severed head is currently living in my spare closet. She could not give a clear timeframe as to when it would regenerate a new body. Apparently this sort of thing hasn’t come up before. I fear her makers would have built a countermeasure if it had.

Now comes the bad news. The only way she could speak with me, the only way this process could work, was if her mission was not disrupted by it. She could bend the rules of her curse so far, but no further. Afterwards, I was to launch the coffin back to you. I have enclosed with this letter my best approximation of our position and time when I did so. After the warp you kindly gave us, I imagine she will have a long, long, long journey.

Which brings me to the discovery: She has no name upon her bones. Only a title. I suspect that many of the Assassins sent after you are made in the same fashion.

I have until she completes her journey back to you. In that time, I will search for a place where you can continue your mission, with something better than polite knives from those around you. If I can manage this, then when she wakes at last, she will be of no danger to you. No Assassin that has been born will be of danger to you. And your colleagues may find other, more relevant friends to send their gifts to.

I think, should we find such a place, that your work would be all the better for it.

I won’t ask you to not defend yourself, should it come to it. I ask only for patience. We have time, and I will be making offerings for her safety, but also for a long voyage. I wish both of you to live. This is the only way I know how to make it so. All I ask is the chance to try.

If you discern any changes to the coffin, please let me know. I will keep you updated on my search.

Faithfully,

Dolce, formerly of Beri

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

Vasilly,

I am okay. I am unharmed. I am in no imminent peril.

I am sorry I could not write you any sooner. I am sorry for quite a bit more besides.

I left Beri, thinking only of taking a short trip, just a few days, with the other sheep who is often with Mayor Kaspar. 20022 is his name, by the way. He had told me of some opportunities in the civil service, and, you remember our talks? About the Skies? I was wondering…well, I was wondering quite a bit, but mainly, I wanted to know if I could help Beri beyond running our little cafe. I wanted to know if I could help everyone on Bitemark.

We met the Crystal Knight.

(Here, there is an uncharacteristic scribble. Words written, then taken back, but too much had been said already to start anew.)

The Royal Architect was coming to mine the planet. We were to get everyone out of the way, to safety. She wanted the ship in the sea. The Royal Architect was not going to wait for everyone to get clear of the peninsula.

I thought there must be something I could do. I thought I could get 20022 to see how…monstrous a thing this was.

I couldn’t do anything.

What little I thought to do was seen, and overridden. And most of my days were spent

I was so happy to hear that everyone got out safely. There is a prayer, apparently, of Mars, that tells you that sort of thing. We saw another ship come down, and then nothing after that. But you all got out. You all got out, in the end.

I am sorry. Please. Tell Mosaic I am sorry. For everything.

I was onboard the Slitted, at the time. Something happened, and the ship was damaged. 20022 and I were busy with the escape, and neither of us could do a thing. I couldn’t slip away, and we both left on one of the escape pods. We were gone, I think, before your ship took off.

Much has happened since then. We visited the Royal Architect. He gave us a shuttle, and he warped us rather far across the galaxy, somehow. He sent with us a slightly damaged machine intelligence, and an Assassin frozen in a coffin. He didn’t want either of them anymore, and they didn’t seem particularly happy to stay with him. There’s too much to write for one letter, so expect a second one shortly.

But 20022. I have told him I want nothing to do with a Service that allows such things to happen. He refuses to listen to me. Despite what we’ve been through together, he acts as though he hasn’t heard me at all. He wishes me to stay. He wishes me to join the Service, and if I were to give him a firmer rejection, then he will leave me behind the next chance he gets. At first I thought he was upset because I kept him from doing anything when the Slitted was attacked. Now, I am not so sure. I don’t understand him. I don’t know how he can pretend this is good.

We are headed, I think, to try and stop you. But that means we are getting closer to you, and that is better than any planet he could leave me on, so I suppose it is working out alright.

I will write more. And I will wait for your letters. I will keep them close to me, always. Maybe I will sew a little pocket in my vest? They do those in the stories, sometimes. It seems a sensible idea. I will keep your letters close by, and whenever I want to hear your voice, I will read them.

And I promise I will do a better job of things than I did on Bitemark. I promise.

All of my love, and always yours,

Dolce

Dyssia!

So the weird thing about the inside of a star is that it's not as hot as you'd think.

Now, cool is a relative term. We're still talking temperatures in the thousands of degrees celsius, more than enough to reduce almost anything into its constituent hydrogen. But once you get past the corona (1-2 million degrees) temperatures drop to a positively balmy 5,500 degrees. The Plousios can survive that - uncomfortably, but potentially for a while. The trick is getting past the corona which is as simple as finding a sufficiently stable sunspot, which hover around a chill 3,500 degrees - that's only twice the temperature of a primitive blast furnace - but you really want to choose carefully to select one that'll still be there when it comes time to leave.

And you can leave. This miracle, too, is within the grasp of science.

There are complications. The Plousios is damaged and undersupplied for this kind of mission. Massive stockpiles of CandleIce - an exotic concentration of frozen hyperium gas - will be required to sustain liveable conditions inside the ship while it is submerged. Significant repairs and heat management upgrades will be required. There is only one place within range to acquire all of these things: An Intergalactic Clearing House Subsidiary.

The Intergalactic Clearing House is one of the wonders of the galaxy, a planet sized warehouse covered with massive container crates fifty kilometers long. An orbital ring with ten thousand space elevators, leading up to planetary dockyards filled with hundreds of thousands of logistics starships. When a request arrives at the Clearing House a crate is loaded and a ship is dispatched. The planet will then receive a container filled with enough of any imaginable product to last anywhere between decades to centuries. This is the logistical network that manages the concept of infinite wealth. Production ceased to be a bottleneck millennia ago, now the only difference between poverty and abundance is connection to the trade network that leads to the Clearing House.

Which brings us to the Subsidiary. A Clearing House Subsidiary is a local distribution node, a spoke that does last mile deliveries for key or high demand items. Sometimes desolate moons with new mountain ranges comprised of containers, sometimes planets surrounded by an ever-tumbling asteroid belt of container boxes filled with tools and machinery. Militarized Subsidiaries are built up on the borders of hostile powers, no matter how far beneath the Endless Azure Skies they might seem. It is one of these you will need to attend to.

The Crystal Knight bragged of her recent efforts destabilizing a primitive alien civilization[1]. The buildup on that frontier will be the place where you can acquire the goods you need to evade Liquid Bronze. It does mean dealing with the frontier's military governor but that's within your capabilities - one to three Azura Knights and their house legions. Perhaps it will even be a chance to spare the aliens from incorporation into the Skies - for a time.

[1] The frontier/system/alien species has been designated as The Argumentative Portuguese - that's the best way to translate the phrase the Azura have used. The Endless Azure Skies rarely bother to befoul their own language with another civilization's name for itself, instead assigning them the name of some group of barbarians from their own history and adding an insulting adjective. Portuguese in this context is drawing a parallel between a barbarian group of technologically advanced merchants.

Have you ever encountered an alien before, Dyssia? Humanity is dead and the galaxy is filled with servitor species, but independently evolved life has been known to exist and be violently incorporated into the Skies. Their art, music and culture is sometimes passed around as the fruits of conquest before being updated to Azura sensibilities. Great works of art are recreated in various shades of blue, literature is translated and improved in the translation, music is retuned to appeal more to local audiences, aliens are genetically altered to be appealing to Azura beauty standards. Other than that no oversight is given to them.

The only thing important to the Endless Azure Skies is their ideal of beauty. Accept that and they can have no quarrel with you.

Dolce!

The Biomancer General is on campaign at the system of Njed.

Orbit is a chaos of warships and debris, the vast plumes of clinging void-compound solid projectile smoke surrounding the planet like a toxic nebula. Massive thunderstrikes arc across the void, leviathan spheres bursting forth from oceans of acidic venom surrounded by tens of thousands of plasma spheres caught in gravitic slingshot orbits. The familiar warspheres of the Endless Azure Skies are joined by and locked in battle against an arsenal of unique vessels - Imperial dreadnoughts, refurbished Ferno[2] strike cruisers, and several twisted and exotic void leviathans of the Tides of Poseidon that have been biomantically captured and bound to service.

[2] In the Age of Knights, there were once three nations: Ferno, Azura and Goltir. Specifics of this have been deliberately obscured by centuries of historical revisionism and propaganda pushing the concept of a single, united Endless Azure Skies.

Njed itself burns. Flashes of atomic detonations light up the dark side of the planet, dim flickers compared to the spectacular fireballs that occur when a plasma sphere makes planetfall. Rainforests burn in apocalyptic conflagrations, the artificial weather patterns caused by the released quadranix and hyperium mixing with carbon staining the face of the planet. In another time the agonized death of a world would mean an end to the war. The Endless Azure Skies has moved far beyond such petty constraints.

Your little shuttle shudders as an emissary ship blasts you with a broadside of diplomats. Summerkind eggs can be loaded into specialized cannons and be fired like cannonballs. When they impact they seal against the hull with adhesive as the eggs quicken - and then they hatch. In the void the swarm all over the surface of the ship, clawing at the hull, minds pulsing with the rage and hunger of the newborn. For two days you try to sleep through the sounds of talons against the walls and kicks rattling the windows. Then, finally, the diplomats calm. The airlock is opened. And with knuckles still bloody from where they beat against the hull exterior, the Summerkind come aboard.

They are beautiful in their way. Slender and quick and with iridescent shines; every flick of their heads sending a cascade of light like from a hundred coloured mirrors. They're looking at everything with interest, tapping the control panels, scratching the walls, turning over and tearing open the furniture and marveling at the stuffing inside. They look at you a little dangerously but they killed enough of their own kind on the hull of the ship to have too many questions about the layout of your internal organs.

"Hi!" said one. "I'm - I'm honestly really glad to meet you!" He absolutely dripped sincerity as he said that, smiling like he was getting to meet one of his heroes. "20022, right? Liquid Bronze sent us to meet you and escort you through to his command post. And wow - he's a big fan of yours, right? One professional to another?"
"I am shocked he has even heard of me," said 20022, though his tone was more irritated at himself for not concealing his reputation sufficiently.
"Oh, yeah, when he heard you were coming -" the Summerkind looked at his wrist where a blotchy birthmark in the pattern of writing was imprinted "- he couldn't have been more thrilled," he read, slightly woodenly. "He noted your contribution to the Report On Secession In The Pacifica Sector with great interest."
"A team effort, I assure you," said 20022 blandly.
"And what a team!" said the Summerkind. "Wow! And you've got one of them here with you! Double wow! What's your number, if I can ask?"

It takes Ember a moment to bring her thoughts back from the present, where she is wanted and helpful, a far cry from the runt of a scout who’d somehow won Mosaic’s heart on Beri with her infiltration and seduction training. Now she’s top of the pack, safe in Mosaic’s lap, so hot that she must be melting, that she must smell of adoration. She could be a creature of her body forever and ever.

“…nobody had my face, either,” she admits. It’s difficult to remember who she was, what she was, before the pack chose her. “Before I was Ceronian. Nobody knows what kind of weird creature I was back then, wandering the beach! And now I’m here.”

She nuzzles back into Mosaic, tries to quiet her nerves by molding herself into the hollows of the— of her lover. Her queen. Her mistress. Her prize and guardian. Her terrifying figure of myth. Her Mosaic.

“Home is with them. Wherever we go. With you. Wherever we go. And it’s here, too, isn’t it? On the Plousios, for as long as we can make it last?”

The question about the fireworks, conversely, will be answered with a small shrug, an admission that Sagetip did something to them, that it’s not something that Ember actually knows— but she can go find out! If you need her to. Not that she truly wants to. Because who would shift out of this lap, once in it? Who would walk away from Mosaic when a night of shared passion gestured invitingly?

"No, I--"

Bella's body tenses. Her claws tear into Ember's pants and only just avoid breaking the skin underneath. Her legs tense like iron and her spine snaps full straight so fast it causes pain. Her ears strain until they can detect the sound of bursting fireworks, dulled but not muted entirely.

She takes a deep breath and feels it press her chest into Ember's back. Heat flushes through her body when she realizes how much it soothes her. She lifts the Ceronian up to touch her chin against the top of her head, and crosses her legs underneath before the weight settles back down so that her lap now mirrors her meditation pose.

Her arms wrap around her... around Mosaic's... fuck it, around her girlfriend, and she breathes. In, heartbeat against heartbeat, out. In, feel her jacket slipping open, out. In, the fur on Ember's neck dripping sweat into the fur on her own arm, out. In, excitement and heat and sweet smelling arousal that stirs something in the base of her tail, out. In...

"That isn't... what I meant. Maybe it doesn't matter to you and it doesn't change where I'm going but I just. Is it that weird to want to know where I came from? What the fuck's wrong with that? Maybe I want... I don't know, if they're out there somewhere maybe I want to save them. Who cares?

"I just want to know what I am, Ember. If I'm going to be a leader now then it's all different. I need to understand myself, I want to... When my mother put me together I just. I don't know which parts she changed. It feels important, all of a sudden. That's all."

Bella works Ember's shirt halfway up her body. Enough to expose her but not enough to free her. In fact it pins her arms in place and leaves her free to put her own hands wherever she wants them. She slides her fingers along the subtle curves of Ember's body, feeling the spine, the ribs, the protrusions of her hips, and all the gentle shivers when her fingers find a spot that makes the wolf girl's heart start to quicken.

Up and down, the front of one hand and the back of another. Tracing her stomach. Up her breasts. Under her half-stuck shirt and across her collarbone. Her teeth nip at Ember's ear. And she breathes.

In, flustered giggling and the feeling of desperate squirming into her legs, out. In, waiting for an answer through all of the teasing, out. In, eyes on the brilliant motes of light still bursting all around them, out.

In. Because that is how she'll keep living. And out. In. Just like before. And out. In. Because she owes them all that much. And out. Until it's normal. Until Bella is...

The fireworks bruise the ribs of the ceiling in livid purples and greens, blues and pinks, until the whole of the world is the coral reef beyond Beri's shore. Her veil hangs askew, unnecessary here between them. Her breath comes in hitches, colors drowning her eyes, the scent of love blossoming around them. Fingers that could break stone brush over her skin, leaving giddy trembling in their wake. The surface of the breaking, shining waves swims far above them, and here they can linger in the sea forever.

"I will find them," Ember pants out, her chin wet, her heel digging into the blanket beneath them. Turquoise, teal, sapphire blooms. "Bella donna." Beautiful woman. It stings her lips like salt. "I will ask the biomancers, I will ask on every planet, I will seek them until, until, ah, aaa~ah..."

Her hips are the swell of broken ships' hulls. Her breasts, open to the air, are flowering coral. Her teeth, biting down on Mosaic's finger, are pearls. She can feel the tension in her lover's body, the flexing of those titan's fingers, the sting where Mosaic bites down on her ear with those teeth like sharks. But there is no fear in Ember of the Silver Divers, who melts into a string of incoherent groans, half-syllables, and particularly pathetic Pixesque yips. There is no place for fear at the bottom of the sea, only acceptance.

He has had two days to prepare for this moment.

He spent those days sick.

No room in the shuttle was spared. Everywhere he went, he could hear them. Every viewport he passed, he closed. It never ceased. It never stayed the same. One, continuous riot, composed of a thousand boiling horrors. A crushing wall of violence, and his ears could pick out the bumps in the mortar. Remarkably akin to working with a fresh bird. He washes his hands, again.

He has had two days to prepare for this moment.

Ask 20022 what to expect when the airlock opens, and 20022 will stir his tea, sniff it gingerly, and add just a splash more honey to the brew. Request a briefing on 20022’s mission, and the protocols of first contact with Biomancer General Liquid Bronze, and 20022 will smile, and 20022 will fetch the slides.

20022 answers every useful question asked of him, to the fullest. 20022 did not say it would be two days. Maybe members of the Service are to ask wisely. Maybe 20022 is still angry. How does he focus on the sheep inside the shuttle and ignore the death outside the shuttle? Dolce does not ask him.

He had only two days to prepare for this moment.

It is the first time he remembers waking. Previously, awake and asleep sounded the same. Now, there is only silence. Now, the only sounds are the ones he remembers. Within the hour, he is expected by 20022’s side, and he is not to be violently ill. Two days. It is time.

The Summerkind find a sheep of a different hue behind and beside their guest. He is dressed in what clothes have been provided him; simple formalwear, not as nice as 20022’s uniform, by a few noticeable degrees. He observes them. He observes his superior. His gaze is attentive, but dull. Docile. Obedient.

They do not see the lioness standing behind him. He does not see the lioness standing behind him, because his eyes are set forward, always. But he hears her. He hears the soft whisper, the dampening of her voice that somehow leaves all its warmth and power intact. His ears tingle, waiting for the breath to steal over them that must be coming as she reminds him. “Go along. Be obedient. Observe. There is too much wrong here. You cannot help them right now. Survive this; there is nothing more you can do.”

He inclines his head deferentially, that not a speck of undeserved praise may fall on him. “My apologies for the confusion; I am a new hire, studying under and assisting 20022. I have yet to earn a number. My name is Dolce.”

When he looks up, all he can see are bloodied knuckles.

”Be obedient. Observe. Nothing more.”

You know, there are times when she hates the color blue.

Which is a weird thing to say, right? Blue's nice. Got no end of variety to it. The blue so dark it's almost black of meditating on a shifting sea floor. The blue of a lapis, polished, gold-flecked. The infinite in-betweens, the rich, the thin.
And hate is a strong word, insists her mental censor. Does she actually hate the color blue, or just what it stands for?

Has she met an alien? When could she have? Going from a sheltered existence as a backwater neophyte to thrusting herself into the arms of constant pressure and danger? When and where would she have had the opportunity?

Which isn't to say she hasn't read stories about them, right? Daring heroine first contacts an alien planet? Stories that, with the benefit of hindsight, wow, sure do involve those daring heroines showing alien people how much better life is in blue?

It's like--

Fuck, she feels selfish even thinking of it like this, but it's like all the Azura can see is their favorite food, right? Favorite food, favorite music, favorite opera, favorite story, favorite everything. And now that they've decided what their favorite is, everything has to be that favorite. If their favorite dessert is cinnamon rolls, then whatever aliens have come up with now needs to be round and glazed. Whatever music they came up with is now filled with horns, because such is the fad.

Blue. Blue everywhere, even if it means that theres no room for reds, greens, purples, and so on. It seems like such a small sacrifice to make--even reasonable.

Bow to their sense of art, and all shall be well. Incorporate yourself, get used to horns and cinnamon rolls, and get comfy.

And ignore everything that isn't blue.

For a time, she can spare them. For a time, she can keep them--the actual them, not the them in the stories that are told afterwards--for a time she can keep them alive.

And also, handily, keep her and her allies alive, if perhaps a touch toasty. Seems like a good deal, if they can pull it off.

Bella, Ember, Dyssia!

For the Argumentative Portuguese - no one in the Endless Azure Skies has written down what they called themselves - it was an apocalyptic alien invasion. Their civilization had splintered into factions - appeasers, escapists, warriors, xenophobes, more and stranger things based on their history, culture, politics and religion. There are wars and shadow wars, the electronic communication link that bound their civilization together in a social media web thrashing in panic. Their arsenals of apocalypse were unsheathed. Their greatest weapons were unveiled. Orbital shipyards were built to mass manufacture battleships for the coming conflict.

For them, the fate of their civilization hung in the balance.

For the Endless Azure Skies it was an idle competition for exactly three citizens.

Here's the setting and situation.

Solar system with fifteen stellar objects of note. One inhabited world with about nine billion Portuguese, a little chilly. One partially terraformed neighbouring planet and multiple deep space installations and experimental colonies on other planets or moons. About five hundred warships that together add up to about a quarter of the mass of the Plousios. Auguries in the newly restored Shrine of Mars indicates that they could all be wiped out with just the Plousios' Plover wing.

There is one small Slipgate and three Sphereships in system. These aren't military ships - one is a civilian yacht, one is a repurposed patrol vessel and one is a Biomantic Field Office. All three ships have active Crystal Dragons who are engaged in idle banter with each other in between sending the argumentative messages of their captains to each other. Brightberry immediately joins this network, spoiling the advantage of surprise but giving you further context as to what exactly's going on here.

The first citizen is Biomancer Cash Money. She is here on humanitarian grounds. Millions of Portuguese die every day from preventable illnesses, minor injuries or even simple old age, something that she regards as an ongoing holocaust that has to be stopped at the earliest possible opportunity. She has launched a covert ground invasion using discount off-brand Toxicrene assassins, abducting and replacing political leaders to prepare the way for a massive emergency uplifting process. She has already established secret medical facilities that perform emergency uplift surgeries - an unpleasant and invasive process - before releasing their subjects back into the wild. These newly uplifted abductees return to society in possession of what are by local standards superpowers and this is Causing Problems.

The second citizen is the Generous Knight. She's a big name, a contemporary of the Furnace Knight who has made a habit of destroying alien civilizations. She's really slumming it with this one, but that's not entirely inexplicable - the Portuguese currently aren't worth the fight and she wants to change that so that it'll be worthwhile when she conquers them. She wants to arm them and uplift them technologically, teach them the basics of the game of stellar war so that they'll be worthy opponents later. She's incredibly mad at Cash Money because she thinks the biological uplifting process will collapse their society and delay the time when they become worthy opponents by centuries. Her forces are in open conflict with the Biomancer's, resulting in a dance of assassins that is causing pandemonium in the alien's politics.

The third citizen is NBX-462. This is a military-grade Synnefo, a well mannered battlesheep who doesn't really have an opinion on when exactly the Portuguese should be fought and incorporated into the Endless Azure Skies but it's his duty to make sure that when that decision is made it goes as smoothly as possible. He's the logistical co-ordinator, bringing in massive quantities of materiel and dumping it on what is going to become the system's Clearing House Subsidiary, one of the outermost planetoids. His other interest is the extermination of a rogue pack of Ceronians who have made planetfall and are alternately hiding among, reigning over, or robbing blind the aliens. Sometimes he will openly intervene militarily on the planet in an attempt to bring them to justice.

What you actually need out of this situation is some liquid Hyperium. There might be some on the Subsidiary now but probably not enough for your purposes - it's not exactly a key military good. Any of the three Citizens could order it in for you if they owed you a favour, or if they were to die, leave or otherwise cancel their own standing orders then your request would be the only thing left in the logistics chain. The Plousios is strong enough to go toe to toe with any of them but probably not two of them.

How do you unpick this knot?

Dolce!

Contribution - he chooses his name based on the birthmark-letter on his wrist - becomes the lead diplomat. Having a personal message from Liquid Bronze engraved on his flesh seems to be accepted by the Summerkind as Really Cool and they regard him as having something like divine right on account of it. After investigation some of the others are excited to discover that they have birthmarks too, though theirs are more vague and cryptic. "Formation instinct has nothing on drill. One must have a spirit before it can be crushed." and "Apologies to anyone who has to debug this code, I was really drunk when I wrote this."

But Contribution is a fun guy and he takes a liking to you. He's got a colourful intensity to him, a rapier wit and a scintillating imagination. "You have massive spy vibes," he said as flak rattles against the exterior of the shuttle, pitching his voice so it's out of hearing of 20022. "And I get it if you don't want to talk about it - but do you want some tips? Service sheep like you aren't meant to just be quiet watchers, that's sus as hell. They're meant to have opinions. You've got to be opinionated to do this work. They front like they don't have opinions but there's always some fucking agenda that they're driving towards. Because they've got to, right? The Azura, the Ceronians - they wouldn't eat their vegetables if you made airplane noises while bringing the spoon to their mouth, but they also don't want to die early of heart disease -" he shook his head. "- right, that's not a thing. There's some really old programming in here," he grinned and tapped his forehead. "Anyway, point is they built the Synnefo to make them do the things that need to be done. They don't want to do it themselves, they don't even want to know about it, but they do want it to be done and so your whole existence is to try and get them to do the needful without them noticing. That is to say, it's cool to be lowkey mad. It's even expected! 20022 radiates Not Mad like the Chernobyl meltdown, whatever that is. He bites it down to do the job. But just being quiet and competent puts people on edge. Spy vibes. Capiche?"