Anarion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Isabelle

Here’s the thing. You’ve done an extremely good job at lying poorly.

Vicky adjusts her glasses again, shifts her stance, stands up straighter. You can see she’s giving you a slightly wider personal space. And, well, all that training from your mother wasn’t entirely wasted. This is a sign of respect. You’re important now.

And suddenly you know exactly where you stand. All that travel information, obviously true, you lied too poorly to have made it up. And so she knows that you’re someone with wealth, someone who would travel like that. Regular people don’t do that unless they’re ship crew on a freighter run, and even then, most freighters are going to run one route back and forth forever. Maybe a route with two stops, max. It’s boring, sure, but it’s also a safe and very simple profitable trade. You go to one planet, buy whatever’s cheapest and best at a value per weight and value per volume that works with your ship, and then you go to a second planet where you offload your goods, buy what the first planet needs to refill the hold and just go back and forth. Medical goods from Alcard sold on Terenius Prime then load up on luxuries from Terenius Prime and sell them on Alcard.

Well, that was a tangent on interspatial shipping, but it’s all to say that when you told her that you’ve been doing business on at least four different, separated star systems, you told her that you were rich. And so now, whatever you’re doing, she’s not going to press about who you really are. Because pressing the rich in a weird dalliance like this is dangerous. You’re dangerous.

“Well…that all make sense then” she eventually manages. “I can’t say that I have, of course. Intra-system, to be sure. The uh…sunsets on Akar II are lovely during its fall. But um…I should be on my way, I’m sure I’ve wasted enough of your time and your partner is obviously recently at having to do all the work giving away free baked goods while I bother you.”

So, that’s a problem solved, right? Maybe?

***

Dolly

The smaller Terenian continues to sputter, blushing furiously as she tries to inspect your jumpsuit only to turn her head away.

The taller one, now, clears her throat though. “Listen, if you want her, her name’s Sam, and she’s a pushover.” This is followed by an indignant squeak from Sam, but not coherent words. The tall one continues. “Like, I tease her normally about her favorite pilots anyway, and you’re the spitting image of that Hybrasilian priestess that pilots the mecha that think it’s a goddess, so, like, congrats on that, I bet you get a lot of attention at parties.”

She chuckles, brushes her hair. “But, it’s going to have to wait until after the show’s over. This is only the most important broadcast of the season and you’ve basically disabled one of the two techs overseeing the master controls. So how about I give you her number and you scram? If that jumpsuit’s actually stuck, I’ll fix it for you.” Sam gives another indignant squeak that says that she’s perfectly capable of fixing the zipper herself and how dare her co-worker intervene like this. It’s a very communicative squeak.

What do you do?

***

Jade

It’s twisting itself like a maze. This isn’t the absolute cutting edge of network security. You’ve actually seen that, back on Hybrasil, where the maze would be like trying to navigate the swirls and rings of a vast and ancient tree that would trap you within its sap. They know there how to keep out even a goddess. But this isn’t that good. It’s the cutting edge of ten years ago from a civilization that’s somewhat less good at computer programming than yours.

That said, it’s still secure. This is an important broadcast and they certainly don’t want anyone getting into it as a prank, so it’s at least fortified against script kiddies. And so it twists like a maze. Stone slabs angle and shoot out, risking a fall that would crush you if you don’t twist out of the way. The angle requires that you work with the gravity of the space and the shape of the walls to direct yourself, shifting your momentum. Carvings speak of chains and cages and the walls close, narrowing the space.

You’re getting a transmission from Matty, who’s getting a signal routed from your idol. “Be careful, Jade. None of the staff know there’s a network intrusion yet, but there’s some kind of automated program. If you hit anything too hard, it will trip and alert people that someone is trying to access it and they’ll start locking it down. You should have some freedom to manipulate it yourself though, since you’re in the actual console and they expect the attacks to be coming from outside. It’s kind of like being on the backside of a gun emplacement, so as long as you don’t hit it so hard it starts firing anyway, you can disable it.”

***

Matty

This is frantic, you wish you had a break. You’re worried about Dolly, and about Isabelle, but they’re…well…they did their jobs technically and they’re kind of on their own. Since now you need to be watching Jade’s hacking attempt and monitoring her networking equipment until she’s properly in control and ready to act. And you need to be watching the fight with Mirror and Solarel so that you know when to act and can actually make sure that Mirror’s plan goes off. Especially since she doesn’t seem like she has a lot of spare room to pay attention to anything else right now.

In fact, you take your eyes off Jade after your last transmission because you’re transfixed by the fight. The series of gold and silver blows is beautiful, and you squirm uncomfortably as you watch each one get closer and closer to cutting into the main body of the Whip. It will all be for nothing if Mirror loses here. If she…but she’s not. Why isn’t the blow landing? What are they both waiting for?!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Isabelle

For what are probably entirely unrelated reasons, Asil audibly groans over at the refreshment stand.

“The…parent company? Teresio space mining industries, like nearly every mining settlement. Even I’m not old enough to remember what space looked like before the corporate consolidation. I mean, I know Teresio leases out equipment deals, shipping, and supplies to all the smaller families, but that wasn’t my job and frankly, as long as the food shipment has the cinnamon rolls with the good frosting, who cares how they got there?”

She’s eyeing you again, leaning her glasses dangerously over the perch of her nose. “Name’s Vicky, which you can call me and ask all about my manufacturing kit if you tell me where you’re actually from…Belle.”

***

Dolly

“You’re in!” Matty’s excited voice echoes over your earpiece. “Jade will need a few minutes, can you um…make sure that nobody interrupts her work?” Well, nothing’s happening immediately, but it’s not like you’d want the entire console to turn blue or green to indicate Jade controls it, since that would also give it away to everyone else. Not everything can be like the Terenian animes after all.

You get everything wrapped up and you’ve replaced the cover as you come out from underneath the desk. Since Jade does need a few minutes and they could notice her before she has total control, maybe you could play the role of key distraction.

You’ll at least need to fix that zipper before you go anywhere, your jumpsuit is going to fall off your shoulders at the slightest twitch!

Jade

You’re in! This new hacking system is really something. What does hacking feel like to you? Is it like cutting through the primordial jungles of Hybrasil? Like dancing from star to star in the night sky? Like feeling your way through a cave to the underworld?

Whatever it might be, your goal is to establish control over your immediate equipment as stealthily as possible, then use that equipment to take over control of the network in time to execute on Mirror’s precise directions.

***

Matty

Oh gods, the fight exploded! Mirror could have cut off the Aeteline’s arm, but instead she tickled it! You have some idea that she must have a plan and that if she didn’t do it, it was because it was a bad idea, but you’re not really sure of the details. If you had time to sketch it out and run some tests, you’d be able to figure out that the thruster limitations from that position meant that the arm cut offered no safe exit route, but for now you’re just going on the gut feeling that Mirror’s got a plan and she’s executing on it. Why else would she start burning down the arena?

The announcers are wildly excited though. Two top of the line mechas deploying all their equipment in dueling laser light shows as they speed over the landscape surrounded by explosions is exactly what the public wants, and everyone wants to try and predict the advantage with each little display.

Okay, okay, you’ve confirmed with Dolly. And Isabelle is…not failing? You’re not really sure what she’s talking about anymore, but the area is still pretty clear from what you can gather, and yelling at her not to screw up while getting questioned will probably just make her more nervous. Which you figure is true because it would make you a lot more nervous and you wouldn’t do that to yourself. You mean, unless it was a scene you were doing and you wanted to get nervous and have the big Terenian push you further and further up to a wall. B-but probably that has nothing to do with Isabelle and she’s fine!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Dolly

“I whuh…I would n-n- I mean, I…c-c-c adfkjajfkdafjk” she makes a strained squeak as her mind tries to imagine being offered to touch you, being told to be a good girl and simultaneously trying to imagine every possible scenario that this could lead into. You’ve landed a perfect lesbian stun move!

You’ve got to work fast though. You may have stunned the smaller one with the long hair, but you had to stop what you were doing for that, pose, make a mess of things, and now her friend is beaming ear to ear and watching you.

Matty crackles into your ear through the communicator “Dolly, hurry, the fight’s already going, Jade’s going to need time to carry out the actual overrides once you have her installed in there. And um…from the sound of things there’s some kind of…um…steam leak in the room you’re in, so you get out of there soon okay?”

You’d also better hurry before the tall Terenian decides you’re too lovestruck and thinks that maybe she can check the console herself to avoid getting yelled at.

***

Isabelle

“Now I know you don’t work for station management” the prim station employee says. But she says it quietly, and she says it as she steps away from the refreshment stand as you press her backwards with your eagerness. Asil resumes giving out the free food and coffee, though she’s got one eye on you and she’s doing her utmost to fight off a pout in the name of the plan. You can see it coming over the corner of your eye.

“Nobody’s asked me about my experience in years. I’m a physical signals engineering specialist, hon. We started here with the old dishes. You know how circular parabolas work? You define a parabola as y=a(x−h)2+k, then the vertex is at (h,k) and the focus is (h,k+1/4a). It’s the perfect shape for signals processing because if you build a circular dish by rotating a parabola around the Z-axis, then every bit of signal that hits the circular dish will all focus on the same point, so you can put your most sensitive receiver there even if you’re low on the expensive materials for the actual receiver and you’ll get a clear signal. We’d have the supply ships drop a satellite sometimes, and then just bounce the signals around the planet. I built the dishes, made sure that the angle was perfect, no imperfections that would cause noise in the communications.”

She actually looks at you and your eager face. “There’s no way you wanted to know any of that, is there hon?”

***

Matty

She threw the sword! She already threw the sword! She’s using Moonlight Silver Kiss! This is how heroes win fights. You had to get the hacking ready quickly, so you chat Dolly to hurry her along, especially because the squeaking sound that probably is coming from a leaking high pressure pipe of some sort.

You look back at the fight and almost scream though because Solarel is charging her, and then you cover your eyes because you can’t look!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror and Solarel

The only sound is the quiet sizzle of the loose earth as it vaporizes in the air against each of your blades. It’s soft, almost more like water than earth as it passes through its phase changes so rapidly that it has no time to properly lose its shape. A gentle breeze channels in through the marble columns as the dust settles.

The galaxy waits with bated breath for the first moves.

***

Isabelle

“Okay, what the hell?” says a middle-aged Terenian woman with a ponytail, wide-rim dark glasses and a prim white business shirt covering an even wider chest. “I’ve been working on this broadcast for thirty years. Since we started as the weather channel on a forsaken mining outpost in the middle of nowhere. And never, not once, has station management splurged for free coffee, the goddamn cheapskates.”

She’s holding up the line and people in back are starting to get antsy. Always a risk with a plan that requires a line. If it gets too long, some people are going to decide that “waiting around for thirty minutes” is too high a price for free food and what will probably be burnt coffee by the time they get there.

Dolly’s already into the control room, but if more and more people start wondering around, inevitably the actual station techs will make their way in there and potentially point out that there has not, in fact, been any technical work ordered for the main broadcast control room.

She’s not moving though. She’s expecting an actual answer, this isn’t a rant, she wants you to, *gasp* talk to her.

***

Dolly

The long-haired Terenian woman who you knocked over spits hair out of her mouth. She had worn it loose, probably figuring that as a sound tech, she could be comfortable and didn’t have to worry about what she looked like. So now she spits loose strands of her out that ended up in her mouth when you pushed her over. She’s blushing, and she looks extremely embarrassed. So much so that it crosses over from her wanting to sink into a hole to instead wanting to be extremely helpful to make it for what she perceives as her mistake.
“Oh, no, no, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. I’m always so clumsy, I’m only good with sound equipment, I never know what to put my hands with other people. I mean…not that I would put my hands on…I oh gosh, oh no. Here let me help, I can help you out. Oh, and um, your zipper is coming loose! No, don’t get up, you’ll just make it worse, here let me come under there, I can help, I can, I can help!”

[Whatever you do with her next, please roll to entice her.]

***

Matty

You blush furiously over the comms. You can’t see what Dolly is doing, but you can hear it and now you’re imagining a strange Terenian leaning over you pulling at your jumpsuit zipper, which has mysteriously gotten stuck. You do your absolute best to be sure that the high-pitched squeak emanating from your lips is not audible over anybody’s earpieces while they’re dealing with their problems!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Finals

Dolly

The broadcast control center for the finals is based on Akar prime, in the heart of the spaceport, on level three (3) of the traffic control tower. Easiest way to staff it from both planets, high tech equipment, perfect broadcast location for the whole system.

Matty comes on over the comms you’ve got nestled at the base of your ear, blended into your fur so nobody can see it right off the bat. “O-okay, so you’re going to need to get Jade’s mesh into the broadcast center and i-inside the control console, along with the data uplink controller, um, t-that’s the little stick with the gold light on it. It will turn green when you hook it to the console. There’s um…two s-staff in there, both Terenians, one that’s um g-got long hair and she’s short and another one that’s um k-kinda darker and has short hair. Isabelle’s going to distract everyone else so that you’ll have a clear approach, but you’ll have to talk your way into the control room and close enough to do the thing and not have them notice. Or um…agree to it I guess?”

You’ve been tasked with giving Jade control over the broadcast equipment for Mirror’s final match. It is apparently deeply important that the broadcast be controlled to her directions and Jade has been given the instructions for that part, you’ve just got to be the physical link that gets her in. Who’s with you, did you bring Ksharta and Angela to help, or go by yourself to be less noticeable?

Jade

You’re the hacker. Slate’s finished her modifications and your idol body feels lighter and stronger than ever before. But, one of those modifications, mixed in with all the high tech new sensor equipment, is a hacking module. One that’s capable of taking over a wide array of communications equipment all at one time. One that you’ve been asked, very politely and formally, to use to control the finals broadcast at key moments as directed by Matty. You’re linked with Dolly of course. She’s got to get into the room and get you hooked into the equipment before you can start your work properly. Got any encouragement for her?

***

Isabelle

The spaceport is crowded and well-staffed. The broadcast for the Arena finals is one of the most popular programs across the entire galaxy. Staff are coming and going, there’s catering, there’s tech staff, there’s actual security, and then all the assorted randoms: the bureaucrats and supervisors, and even some interns all filling the space.

Your job is to get everyone out of the way so that Dolly can safely approach and work her way into the master control room in the spaceport on the third level of the tower. You’ve got all the engineering power of Hybrasil and the Terenius Consortium that Slate and Asil could offer you, Zaldarian nanotech, and anything else you can muster from your friends, allies, and contacts. Matty is on the communicator line for any coordination you need.

Dolly’s already on the move. How are you managing all this, and what’s going through your head as you do it?

***

Matty

You cannot believe they left you to do this alone. Alone! You can’t leave your post for anything. Well, you could, but Slate has been working nonstop for days and you don’t have the heart in you to wake her to take over your spot. Not for anything, not unless the building is burning down, and even then you’d try to carry her out without waking her. No, she gets to snore away in the next room after her hard-earned reward arranging an entire network wide communications takeover linked to the entire redo of Jade’s idol body. Which she apparently also completed in record time and did not skimp on any of the requested features in the process.

But, you’ve set Dolly up, and you’re waiting for any signals from Isabelle, and meanwhile Kiriala is in a nearby building disabling their security so that everybody else won’t be recorded doing any of this. But she hasn’t contacted you in thirty minutes and you’re too afraid to distract her yet since she’s still on schedule, so you’re just sitting on your office chair in the hangar and fidgeting your legs which do not reach the floor in this desk setup and hoping that everything goes great for Mirror’s broadcast takeover. Yeah, this plan totally isn’t crazy!

***
***
***

Mirror and Solarel

For the finals, your arena is…the planet. The entire planet.

You are starting in an arena proper. Not the one where Mirror fought Heim, which is apparently still entirely closed off and has been moved underground using the nanobots surrounding the area to do earth moving for unspecified repairs. But nevermind that, they’ve created an entirely new arena at a mecha scale. You and Solarel deploy to a vast field, surrounded by glorious marble spires ten stories tall, holding up two rows of white marble walls. The top is open, creating a vast colosseum surrounding you for the beginning of your fight.

But you are not limited. There are no boundaries and no other competitors. The nano-bot constructed planet is laid out to cover its range of terrain used over the tournament. Sections of it are arranged as Terenian cities, some in new shape, others ruined and overgrown. Vast rivers and forests cover some areas, others are mountainous and open. Above you, several space platforms and satellites float in the upper atmosphere. And the skies are clear and cloudless on this side of the mountains, the sun shining down and lighting up the arena. You could burn clear across the planet for hours and keep fighting wherever you please. Or you could stay exactly where you started and clash in close quarters.

Camera drones are deployed above you, and many, many more are secreted about the space, prepared to follow you or activate as you move about in order to get the best shots at the best angle, all broadcast back to the system for the live viewings, and then to the neural mesh recordings for mash production and dissemination across the solar systems.

The entire world is your battlefield, do with it what you will.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

“Very well, you’ve won. You have me, and I will do as I’m told.”

Marcina takes your hand. Without hesitation or reluctance. This is not to say that there is no fear in her face. No, from what you know of Terenians, and the feeling of her pulse as you touch, she is quite nervous. Her heart beats swiftly and her brow is furrowed. Even still, she cannot read you, even still she sees the leaf that might blow her any which way. But if before she sought to cow the wind, now she has surrendered herself to it. Not without trepidation, but she has overruled it and surrendered. Utterly, completely. Take her as you please, show her what you will, in this moment she is yours.

***

Dolly

Slate cocks her own head. “I meant questions about my work, but that’s not what I said. She’d pin me for that. That’s what you ought to know about her, Dala Hunters. She is powerful and she is strict. With herself more than anyone else in the world. She has given her heart and soul to her dreams. Dreams that shouldn’t be possible. Dreams that she clings to without ever being satisfied with everything and everyone else who comes to her. But who she needs nevertheless. She needs the biggest family in the world and you’re part of it now.”

She grins again, and you get the impression that you’ve already been hunted down and devoured. And then, well, maybe you have.

***

Isabelle

Even here, help is not long away. Rescue drones fly up from below to help you down and to gather the remains of the Emberlight. Little enough remains of it. The sniper round incinerated most of the core systems. But the drive is still in its protective casing surrounded by melted slag, and the lower third exists more or less intact. So there is salvage to recover and something that can be made from this yet. Eventually. Though let’s be honest, even with nanobots assisting you, creating a new Emberlight (if that’s even what you want now) would be the work of the better part of a year.

There’s also the matter of your own numbness. The sudden daze of feeling sensation cut from your lower body, and then the shot, so fast that it felt like you were stabbed in the chest before the feed cut out entirely. No warning lights blare because there’s nothing left of the automated systems to blare them. There is instead quiet. The gentle rush of the wind through turbulent clouds alone with you as help comes to get you.

You’ve seen into the heart of Solarel, but before you could get there, you were blocked by something dark and terrible. Reflect on what you have found.

***

Solarel

Where are you?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

She knows that she’s lost this fight. You can read it in her body language as you lift off, in the slightest hint of lethargy of the responding shield drones before they’re blown apart by your tails.

It’s one of the easier calculations to make. She’s used a vast amount of resources. Nor is this a Solarel style battlefield, she has not snuck into the space and filled it with hidden mines or had the opportunity to seed the field with heretofore unseen drones. Marcina Villajero is not the sort of woman to partake in such tricks, but prides herself on being able to foil or endure them. You, though, you have outlasted her in every way that counts. Perhaps in another minute she would rally and understand how to fight you with simply her sword. Perhaps she could make that realization. But in this moment, she has used up or lost nearly all of her payload, attacked you in your most vulnerable and limited position with the most speed she can muster, and the blow was not decisive. It did not even slow you nor disable your next attack. And now you have freedom of motion.

“If I am like walking the mountain, then I see that you have mounted me” she says, with a voice that sings bittersweet. “Come then, take what you have earned.”

She does not concede, but charges you again. Knowing that she cannot avoid the shot, knowing that she will not make it to you. She watched the Heim Stockar fight as well, and understands the power you can put out. But what is she to do? Dodge? Dodge and dodge and dodge in a machine that will exhaust her to do so and hope for an opening? No, she is the bulky one, the one in armor and with the sword that can end the fight in one blow all her own. She will fight and give herself completely to your hands.

Do with her what you will.

[She takes a string on you in offering her submission and will spend it immediately to offer an XP for you to show her everything you’ve got.]

***

Isabel and Solarel

The long slow dance is coming to a close. You’ve already mapped the terrain. Pieces of the cityscape were blown apart at random and no new threats have since emerged. The clouds were ionized, released, and ionized again and no new threats have emerged. The remaining structures, such as they are, present a known set of visuals. Surprising how quickly you can start to get a feel for what’s going to be at your back without needing to stop and look. A new map only challenges its players briefly and then they solve it for its particular quirks and eccentricities.

What remains to you is simply to avoid the distraction of the beautiful sunset, casting the sky in a vivid mixture of oranges and pinks.

Bring the duel to its conclusion.

***

Dolly and Jade

“Alright that will do for today. See you again same time tomorrow?” Slate’s smile is all teeth. She had fun, and she knows she had fun. She knows about your connection, and well, some things can be inferred even if they aren’t directly stated. Though surely this was a coincidence, a lucky moment that she chose to capitalize on, perhaps didn’t even realize until it was already happening and she was coming out of her technical reverie.

“I think we have all the details we need. The larger parts will come either tomorrow or the day after. We’ll need a little time to get them switched out, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, and then there will need to be some rounds of testing and tuning. I admit that I am curious how that works with Smokeless Jade Fires. Normally the AI provides raw data and then the pilot compares their impressions. A tenth of a second faster turning isn’t useful if it makes the pilot feel sick, that sort of thing. But in this case I imagine the goddess has the final say in most of these things, at least as long as the high priestess can handle it. Any questions for me?”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

“Fighting you is like…like trying to fight a leaf in a storm!” There’s a mixture of respect and frustration in that language, and a tone that says that the image popped vividly into her head of its own accord.

“Always moving unexpectedly. Floating only to catch a new current of air and move suddenly, differently, impossibly.”

Three waves of missiles you’ve avoided. The cockpit is even hotter than before, a combination of your own exertions and the heat of nearby explosions defusing throughout the Gods-Smiting Whip in order to avoid structural vulnerability. Your tail system is delighted. Every tail except tail 9 has lit up for potential use after that sequence of dodges. Almost eager to get back out there after all being recalled to the main body save tail 1 on the arm for shielding.

“But now, the wind has died down and the leaf has settled gently onto the ground. Now is the best chance I’m going to get in this fight, isn’t it?”

There is a critical difference between Solarel’s version of this technique and Marcina’s. And not just that Marcina came with multiple waves. The Bezorel was, fundamentally, a piece of junk. Slow, weak, outfitted with an older drive that offered less efficient energy and thus incapable of multiple actions at once without sacrificing so much defense that it would end up one-shot.

But the Jormungar is a far cry from that machine. It’s the best that the Terenius Consortium can produce, constantly upgraded. The tip of the spear of all the power of a galactic civilization that valued aggressive expansion for resources. It runs the latest drive, the best materials, the most efficient defenses. With so much of its equipment load dedicated to missiles that it has now fired, the huge machine is also much lighter. Light enough that a charge with that massive sword is now possible without a fight-losing commitment.

This is the difference. Solarel fired the hellzone grenade for its own sake, a technique that would pressure its opponent with overwhelming firepower in a single moment. Marcina Villajero fired it three times because she hoped that it would limit your tactical flexibility for the follow up strike.

You are on the ground, knee buried in water and flowing rubble, your sword your only purchase for a fast change of position. All your tails are on the body of the Whip, preventing unexpected angles. And Marcina is coming at you with her massive sword faster than she’s ever moved before. This was the cost of surviving the hellzone grenade.

What will you do to turn this around?

***

Isabelle and Solarel

A huge piece of the cloud platform blows apart. While the immediate effect is a surprise attack, it also shifts the structure of the city. The primary platform, which was supporting multiple buildings and communications spires, has lost a section of its base and as a result it begins to list towards the explosion, metal groaning and buckling as it shifts through wisps of cloud. It won’t hold together long, and you’ll both find yourselves needing to react to crumbling metal and concrete or to take the fight vertical, into the rapidly churning cloud cover, sparking with lightning after Solarel’s earlier display and the rapid introduction of several energized metallic elements into the mix.

***

Dolly and Jade

“Alright, I won’t ask you twice.” Slate grins, and then she’s suddenly a whirlwind of motion. You may not have ever seen one of Mirror’s engineers properly at work before, and it’s somewhat different than Jade’s regular cult. There is no oblation before the goddess from Slate, nor any sort of ritual movement. She’s punching orders into a wrist communicator, and then scrambling past you and several startled cult members to pull open panels and check component types, wiring, and data links.

Jade, this may feel rather akin to being suddenly tickled, given that you were not expecting work to be done.

“Okay, we’ll need lighter legs, more power for the ambush when you have terrain options, including space stations and asteroids, please remember those. We’ll want to upgrade the stealth generator, which will go further down into the chassis to prevent it from being disrupted by jamming technology. All the rumors are that the pirates ended up with the best jammers somehow, you should bring one back for me, I’ll build you the countermeasure for free. Okay right, and then stronger arms, lighter chest, obviously keep the the center of the chest wide to give the pilot lots of protection, but bring in the stomach, she’s going to be thin at the center, yeah that one, get that shipped here right away, it should already be in the Hangar somewhere, yes I’m authorized, no it’s not my normal docking bay number, yes add it to the Hybrasil account, thank you.”

It’s rather like a whirlwind has descended on Jade’s idol, poking and prodding for details, information, technical compatibility, jumping around the platform past the startled crew. How do you all react?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Isabel

The clouds part, and you see that you have indeed gained Solarel’s attention. Perhaps more even than she realized. Though she could resume the system again, and there is much danger to you from an approach, the motion of the wind, the cloud, and the swirls and eddies through the city means that one of your drones could reach close range without it being possible for it to be separated out from the fog until it’s close.

Answer two questions. First, what are you most ashamed of? Second, what are your feelings towards Solarel? Answer both truthfully. Answer one through words, and one through action.

Solarel

You stand as a goddess questioning the toy that has been held up to you in offering. Remember, however, the myths of Hybrasil that you learned from Mirror. A goddess who is too proud and unwary can still be bound, though her wrath will be fierce indeed.

The initiative is to Isabelle for the next move.

***

Mirror

“I fear I will yet fall short of your demands, Mira Fisher, whose star name is Whispered Promise, whose mercenary call sign is Mirror, whose title is the One Day Defender. These are the things I could research about you, the records of your deeds that were left from your work among my people and the tellings of your people that my staff were able to contact in the time that I realized you were entirely honest with me in the bar.”

There is a sadness in her voice at this, a feeling of fear that she doesn’t believe that simply reciting the names and titles of your people and your work will answer the question you’re really asking. But nevertheless, a sign of respect. Showing her work, offering to you the time and effort she has spent.”

At the same time, missile lock warnings start to sound. She hasn’t moved out of the mist, not yet, but she’s activating a substantial part of her payload, using her targeting software for the lock without needing to exit the water. Tricky to do, superheated water and steam would stop most wavelengths of energy. She’s probably scanning for you via high-radiation sensors of some kind, maybe specifically tuned to a Crystal Fire energy source distinct from the weapons fire.

“As for your secret. I suppose I must disappoint you there as well. It lies in my hands and yet I cannot grasp it. You are not piloting with a neural mesh interface. I know you are not. I’ve watched every one of your fights in detail. Certain actions you have taken were not merely unlikely but impossible with such an interface. Your last fight guaranteed this to me, when you defeated Smokeless Jade Fires. You’ve strained past all known physiology of a Hybrasilian body, and if you were numbing feedback to the level that would be possible without knocking you unconscious, you would not have been able to act in the reaction times required to make that fight look flawless. It crossed from something that could, perhaps, be explained with the most cutting edge technology to the realm beyond the possible. But what are you doing instead? How am I to get my hands around that?”

At last, there is the hint of a smile in her voice. “Well, I thought perhaps you’d give me more data in this fight. In my opinion, though the fight with Jade Fires was most informative, it was not the one where you were most pressed.”

The missiles have taken to the air, but as they approach you, they do not remain as one missile. Rather, each one splits into a burst of cluster missiles, some going directly at you in a cloud, others diverting to fly above or below you and then home in on you together. The exact strategy that Solarel used when she was piloting the Bezorel, but deployed much faster. While it was ssable only once on such a small mech as the Bezorel, it’s possible depending on how much space the Jormungar has dedicated to this that she could manage two or perhaps even three waves of this burst missile attack.

***

Dolly and Jade

Slate smiles. She does not speak as she watches Dolly’s head tilt and her cheeks blush. She does not speak as Jade caresses her, but she tilts her head and she watches without blinking. And she does smile.

When Dolly stops, when Jade releases her to focus, then Slate speaks.

“Are you saying that you want these things more than you already have them? That you wish to further optimize an already light chassis for stealth, speed, and ambush tactics?”

She laughs then, not hard, not long. A quick spit of a laugh that makes her turn her head and arch her neck before it comes out like a bullet. Then she turns back to you. “Which of you does this request come from, I wonder? It’s a request that requires either the highest confidence or the desire to someday lose. Do you know what the tradeoffs are for a chassis like the one you describe? Let me tell you. Acceleration is a factor of energy output and mass. Particularly in space. In an atmosphere there are also matters of aerodynamics, wind, and vectors to consider, but in space, acceleration is strictly energy output and weight. Now…”

She pauses, and gives you a serious look that suggests you ought to know this already, but she’s giving the lecture anyway. The kind of lecture she’d give a novice pilot who was first deciding on their practice specifications. “Your energy output is a fixed number, we’re not getting you a better drive than you got from Hybrasil. So we need to entirely focus on weight for your desired results. That makes the question one of trading offense and defense. If you want communications jamming software, disabling weaponry, stealth generators, and enough overall power to actually win a fight on the ambush, you’re going to be maxing out your weight on offense. So, let me spell that out for you as clearly as I can. If you run a chassis like that and you’re ever taken unawares, YOU will be the one instantly knocked out. The Red Band, as I understand their methods, usually follows that up by trussing up their prize and dragging it bound and gagged back to their headquarters. In fact, if memory serves, you’ve already experienced that once? So, let me confirm. That’s the kind of body that the Goddess Smokeless Jade Fires and her High Priestess desire?”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror

Marcina’s combat style is often characterized as one with the minimum of wasted effort. A machine as massive as the Jormungar has a lot of momentum. If she tried to dive aside from every attack, she would find herself outpaced and outmatched. While novices might assume that a massive, heavy platform is simple to operate, it’s actually the opposite: in an era of high-speed mechas with deadly weaponry, piloting a heavy machine is an act of supreme skill.

The parry is a shift of one foot a few meters and an adjustment of the angle of her primary sword by approximately 13 degrees. She doesn’t so much stop your blade as she adjusts it, using the force of your momentum against you as though she were a matador at what you’ve seen in the holovids as a bullfight.

But then, that’s not quite good enough, is it? Of course, she had already fired a visible autocannon at you as you charged, if nothing else to ensure that you maintained the shield and punish a feint. But once you got close and that option was no longer available, she understood as well as you did that your tails represented as much threat as the sword. She calculated immediately that she couldn’t leave them unaccounted for, couldn’t accept an unknown variable.

The drones deploy immediately, accounting for the fact that your breakneck speed requires a response without hesitation. In Hybrasil, you would call these jackals, but they are not operating on the sort of jackal logic that produced Jade. Nor are they like the complex drones that Isabelle Lozano seems to enjoy for weaving illusions. Both of those coordinate as a group for a singular aim (typically simple, occasionally dazzlingly complex as in Isabelle’s case). These, rather, are each independent, directed by Marcina’s will. There are two on each side and they don’t stray far from the Jormungar. Two of them form an energy shield, pressing the energy blade of the tails off their trajectory. The other begin to rain fire on you from a slight vertical angle, allowing for the safety of the Jormungar itself even at close range.

The autocannon fire is annoying, but it should be emphasized, not overly dangerous unless you just sit in it for a prolonged period. It’s most effective for throwing off your balance, rather than doing anything like serious damage to the Whip. But, they now place the onus on you to respond before she uses the opening for a much more powerful attack.

As you each draw a breath, she answers. “You ask for a name and a secret as though they were singular. Liar. If I have learned anything, it is that. What does it mean to be the One Day Defender? To be known among your people as Whispered Promise? A whispered promise can be both heard and unheard. A secret kept even from the girl it’s about, or a secret shared from the start. And then, there are times that a whisper is louder than a thousand shouts and just as well heard, are there not?”

***

Isabel and Solarel

What you’re seeing isn’t entirely inexplicable. Ionized electrical energy is a hallmark of crystal fire-powered weaponry, and applied to a stormcloud that already had electrical charge, it wouldn’t even take a particularly large amount of electricity properly directed to create the effect that you’re seeing.

That said, the fact that it has an explanation hardly makes it less impressive or creative. She’s channeling enough energy into that cloud that anything running in there is going to get massively electrocuted. Think constant lightning strikes, so if your machine or your nanobots aren’t built to handle constant lightning strikes don’t go in there. Energy shielding can certainly handle that, of course, that amount of energy is nothing compared to a hyperjump. But it’s committing you to a particular course of action and a particular distribution of energy usage if you go in there to get her. And that means she’ll know more about what you’re doing than you might like.

Then again, perhaps a strategy that forces you to limit the strategies you choose is, in truth, a sign of respect?

It is Isabelle’s move as to how to respond to it.

***

Dolly

“96, huh? Let’s see, that’s three steps since I last checked. Usually one number means they advanced something meaningful, but they were getting sloppy about it before I left. Back in the 70 series, if they went up a full number, it meant a comprehensive improvement in energy efficiency and processing capability together. Now…mmm, I’d guess with three that’s still true, but it might be more like one number used to be.”
Slate’s grinning while she thinks, her eyes never going off you, Dolly. She doesn’t see like Mirror, but she sees with her own eyes all the same. “She passed you that info, I take it. The way you spouted it off, cadence was all wrong. Knew I’d know that too, didn’t she?”

She blinks, once, twice. “Well, if the goddess wanted to talk to me directly, I’m sure she’s got plenty of ways to do it, so I’ll go through her priestess. Her dancing priestess.” She grins again, just a little bit feral behind it, showing you her teeth.

“More questions. Well, not about the specs unless there’s something specific the goddess wants me to know, in which case feel free to just cut in with that when she relays it. I think my questions are about the why. I’m an engineer, a very good engineer, I’ll have you know. I deliver on the technical goals that someone wants. With Mirror, that means a machine that wins her fights. But with you, with a goddess who teaches her priestess to pilot by dancing. Who, as you said, eschewed a more firepower heavy loadout because of goals unrelated to maximizing combat performance, I need something different. I need to know what you want to be able to accomplish, and how you want to accomplish it. Tell me what you want to actually be able to do.”

You might think she’d be frustrated over this ambiguity, but her tail lashes with excitement.