Thanqol

The Red Furnace: First Contact

[Friction roll: 5. Once again the Aotrs scouting team avoids unwanted contact]

It's nightfall when you reach the alien camp. Even with the advantage of drones and long range scanners, this is a highly patrolled region in the mountains. It's an extremely defensible spot with lots of long, clear sight lines and so there's a sharp limit on how close you can get without revealing your presence. Still, though, the aliens do not seem to be expecting company and their defensive doctrine does not seem to take into account the assets available to the Aotrs.

Whatever else is happening with the aliens their logistics are galaxy class. Each shuttle that descends has its cargo attached externally in sphere-containers marked with the grav-drive >>> symbol, like clusters of grapes. With a series of gestures like an orchestral conductor, a serpentine officer is able to cause the entire cargo to detach in a single massive movement. The spheres then sort themselves into rows and columns, instantly forming a warehouse grid. Not only does this represent the equivalent of a modular AI-enabled storage warehouse but the storage containers are even arranged for secondary benefits: Walls of low-priority goods are used to form mobile exterior defenses for the base, while dangerous goods are stored in specially dug pits and covered with water.

It's not just a specialist function either - proper OH&S, handling, labeling and storage is drilled down to the bones of everyone here. But more than the high level of competency on display, good logistics is a means that can be used to achieve a variety of ends: larger troop formations, more heavy vehicles, and so on. The overwhelming focus of, at least this stage of alien logistics, seems to be the establishment of infrastructure. A great deal of material is being sent out in order to construct more of the acceleration rings increasingly further away from the base - the relevant spheres are levitated up to a ring and when they pass through the gravity pulse sends them zooming away like a missile, reaching their destination in minutes.

Scans reveal two major points of interest in the base. Firstly, the aliens have constructed a number of extremely large versions of the curse spikes seen on their infantry. Firstly, an enormous tree is felled, stripped of bark, had several ritual preparations performed, and hauled into position. Then one of the aliens sits in meditation underneath it and using some unclear magic they project the curse on their soul into the dead wood. They have established eight of these massive spikes so far, along with a host of smaller ones.

Secondly, the aliens are constructing a temple complex. This is no prefabricated structure - this is an intense labour involving primitive tools, local materials and highly skilled artisans. Work has begun on sculpting a trio of statues in the centre of the site, and small shuttles are crossing the planet to bring marble cut from various locations back to the base. Spiral pathways are laid and elegant gardens are being planted. At the rate this is going it will take weeks but its completion seems to be the central priority for all industry here. Seemingly, the primary purpose of the base entire seems to be to supply and defend the temple.

This observation gives you an extremely good idea of their numbers and composition - and they are substantial. The aliens have landed over 50,000 living beings, along with masses of material. There are some vehicles in use, mostly engineering and construction based, but no heavy armour. 30,000 of these soldiers are the canid legionnaires, and mostly these are dressed in the low-status drab blue colours - mainline combat troops who are doubling at most construction and engineering functions. 10,000 are various uncategorizables - more specialized bioforms of all kinds of shapes and sizes, auxiliary branches made to fulfill a variety of secondary functions. 5,000 are the snakelike aliens, predominately dressed in higher-status bright blues and operating in various leadership roles. And the remaining 5,000...

You've gotten so used to looking at blue that the bright yellow of their rubberized robes seems jarring in comparison. Despite their bright colour you almost miss them at first - their robes seem designed specifically to defeat sensors, ward against magic and conceal what's underneath, making them only really visible to direct optics. Visually, they are a strange and misshapen bunch - dozens of shapes and sizes, including one so large that it looks like a train engine with a yellow tarp thrown over the top.

These have nothing to do with the others. Not with the temple, not with the spikes, not with the logistics. They are building a specialized hub half a kilometer removed from the base, in an even more defensible position further up the mountains, all under the cover of sensor-baffling material sheets. After getting so much information uncontested it's a surprise to learn that at least some of them understand how to keep a secret.

With complete strategic surprise, a lightning raid on the yellow position without engaging the main base is possible if desired. A covert infiltration will require specialized intelligence assets.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Bezorel had a face that not even a committee could love.

There were mechs that one procured because one was cheap - and then there were mechs that one procured because one was cursed. The Bezorel was a human design, the Warcrusher-class: an unholy marriage of a designer who foresaw the future of mecha as armoured personnel carriers and a military who didn't trust bipedal locomotion and demanded the use of a backup set of treads on its feet. It has the aura of a militarized garbage can on roller skates. It's also a hangar queen, uses an experimental dead-end of a weapon system, and explodes in such a satisfying way that it improves the morale of enemy forces.

The weapon system is an Archimedes Prototype Laser array - imagine a pair of large and glittering solar panels that hang off the side of the Bezorel like a set of elephant ears. These crystal panels focus energy into low-grade prototype laser array. The one upside to the Archimedes is that it can manage a "Hella" rate of fire, a factoid most popularly cheered by the infantry carried within the Warcrusher's bulk until they reached the bunker it was failing to burn through.

The Bezorel is the final, tragic manifestation of the Warcrusher. It limps onto the battlefield as though hungover, and even the vaunted rapid-fire capabilities of the Archimedes are stuttering. The volley comes constantly but ragged, missing beats, pewpew pew pew - pew pew pew...

It's a tragic sight.

*

SYSTEM: Pattern identified.
#$# Pattern? What pattern?
SYSTEM: The pattern of the laser array.
!!@: Why are you examining the pattern? It is manifestly failing to overcome Dame Stalok's shielding.
!!@: It is failing even to optimize for the limited capabilities possessed by the TC design.
!!@: Such a technique possesses no military value.
SYSTEM: Correct. The attack pattern deployed by the Bezorel possesses no military value.
!!@: As I thought.
#$#: ...
#$#: SYSTEM, does the pattern possess cultural value?
SYSTEM: Define "Culture".

*

The Sea Spike draws closer. Oftentimes it can weave paths directly through the lasers, letting them glance harmlessly off its armour. Nierka feels the rumbling pulse of impacts but proceeds unbothered; shields may have been dropped but armour is barely getting warm.

Abruptly, the Bezorel changes its attack pattern. A volley of missiles is launched abruptly and the machine opens up with a volley of wildly inaccurate autocannon fire. Spent shells crash into the ground, the deep and percussive rumble added to the intensifying laser array fire.

*

#$#: You are hearing this too, right?
!!@: There is no way.
#$#: SYSTEM, confirm origin of attack pattern.
SYSTEM: Attack pattern confirmed to be musical in nature. Relevant song identified as classic TC electronic piece "Megalovania".

*

Amidst the blinding lights of the Archimedes array and the hideous aesthetics of the Bezorel, it would take a razor eye indeed to notice that the cockpit was not closed. A thick black cable runs out of it, down onto the ground, where it is buried under a thin layer of dirt and pinned to the ground with rocks. So hidden, the cable runs all the way across to the leg of the Sea Spike. And then up that leg. And then all the way to the cockpit of the enemy mecha.

And then, BANG!

Pressed against the glass exterior of the Sea Spike, at the end of the long cable, is Solarel. She wears a manic grin, her Mind-Impulse interface headset still connected back to the Bezorel, and fire. She lay in wait for the Sea Spike to get closer so she could board it, and has been specifically aiming at herself with her distant mech as she climbed its leg. The low powered lasers were absolutely perfect for building up a massive store of Motive Force without triggering a spike. Dressed now only in the ragged and burning remnants of her clothing she literally flares with power as she raises her right fist to punch right through the cockpit window of the Sea Spike to take her rival by the throat.

Did you miss her, followers of Zaldar?

[Fight: 6]

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

At the end of a long road, through war and death, pursued by a demon, is a grave. It is roomy. Space enough to lay you to rest along with all your friends.

Above the grave stands Hades. He's been busy. His shovel is wet with sand and all about are the crystals and precious metals his industry has brought forth from the earth. He dabs at his forehead with a white hankerchief and gives you the first smile you have ever seen from those thin lips and starshine eyes.

Oh yes, it's roomy down there. Space enough to bury one side of this conflict forever. Down in the depths of the pit smoulders a single cigarette butt, and there's a spot of light as the middle-aged man who smoked it lights another. You know, Aphrodite might have been beautiful once? He tips his round hat and he's gone again in moments.

Behind you comes a monster. But there is no one to light her way.

Alexa!

They could be sisters. Two wolves of Ceron, armed and armoured for battle. Theirs were the throats that howled the end of the galaxy. Theirs were the teeth that broke its neck. The finest warrior species devised by an ancient humanity. The ancient wolf, man's first enemy, its first friend, born anew in this distant future as the war hounds of empire.

They couldn't be more different. A bloodhound and a poodle.

Epistia is young, lean, jagged. Blood and fire, inside and out. The genetic alchemy of her biology runs rampant, this machine of flesh and bone and death, perfect vessel for the god of war. A great many genewrights laboured for a great many years to encase the mysteries of battle in the language of instinct. She moves with confidence, swaying as the intelligence of her spine alerts her to threats. The scythe swings back and forth like a pendulum, cleanly severing fledgeling trees of clusters of wheat as they grow rampant in this world that was once a desert.

Beljani is in each aspect the opposite. She is prim, round, delicate. She moves like a flower petal or dandelion seed, never seeming to accelerate beyond a walk. Her shortsword and fan are so comically mismatched against the reach of that terrible scythe it seems she may as well be disarmed. But below the surface her own biologically engineered organs are pounding just as hard. The air becomes thick and heavy with the scent of her perfume, a faint fuchsia tint visible in the air around her. And as she circles so do her puppets; twenty soldiers who emulate her own slow-walking dance, connected to their mistress by strings of delicate mist.

Neither salutes. To show respect would be to die.

There is silence for a moment. The rain pours off their fur, darkened puddles around their feet.

And then, all at once, Beljani and all her soldiers drop their weapons.

With one motion each of them snatches a SP grenade from their belts. With one motion, they throw those twenty grenades upon the ground. In the roar of light and sound the pink thread severs and Beljani loses all of her puppets. In exchange for this surprise she cast off her entire arsenal.

Through the storm she runs, eyes shut and senses deadened. She ducks under the scythe and crashes into Epistia, a tackle around the midsection. And then she's on top and that airy little poodle is biting and biting and biting. All along the arm, the collar, the neck - and then she is caught and hurled away. Epistia staggers to her feet, snarling, and stalks after her opponent, smoke billowing away from her in clouds.

She looms over the assassin, bloody froth on her lips. Beljani, bloodstained, smiles up at her.

And Epistia freezes in place. Her muscles tremble and her eyes flick down to her bite wounds, glistening with the aftermath of Beljani's venom.

But then she slugs Beljani across the face.

The battle is now on Beljani's territory - the landscape of mind control. Her venom courses through Epistia's veins, but Epistia fights against it. The fight has become stop-go, with Epistia frozen in place for long moments while Beljani recovers and lands counterblows, before snapping out of it and counterattacking. It's vicious and you have no idea who is going to win - until Beljani's hand falls across the hilt of a sword. She picks it up.

And throws it aside.

You know in that moment she's going to lose.

Further and further she goes back until she's fighting with her back against a tree - arms up, battered into a corner like a boxer with nowhere further to retreat. The heavy blows come harder and faster as Epistia finds a rhythm and you can hear the heavy impacts over the rain. At last she seizes Epistia by the wrists and then lifts her up off her feet, pinning her against the tree as the assassin's legs ineffectively kick against her. Epistia, face alight like a demon, leans close and snarls, ready to return the bites she was given earlier.

And at that moment a fuchsia mist, thicker than anything Beljani has previously used, pours out of her body. Her mouth, her eyes - everything she has. It pours into Princess Epistia who howls and drops the assassin, clutching at her head, clawing at the air around her. She struggles and writhes. She collapses. She kicks against the ground, tearing roots and fresh grass apart. And then at last, they both lie still.

And then a few moments later they both sit up. They both stretch. They both sniff the air, look at each other, then look at the world around them. Both perfectly synchronized. Not puppet and master - two puppets.

Vasilia and Dolce!

"Oh, forgive my tardiness," said Aphrodite. "Business. You know how it is."

He couldn't look older than fifty.

"But you're wrong, with your prayers," said the God of Love. "You always have been. You people always are. I try to tell people how it is but nobody listens to me. Listen, Dolce, if you have ever obeyed the gods listen to my advice now: You do not have love. You were not gifted with love. You do not deserve love."

He snapped his fingers, hard and clear. "You belong to love. It owns you. You will be love's obedient slave or it will torture you until you learn your place. This bitch," he jerks a thumb at Demeter, who looks scandalized, "is nothing. She's just another way for me to teach you that. Capisce?"

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

"Interesting. So you don't know why she tried to have me imprisoned?" said Zhaojun. "I'd consider it a personal favour if you could discover whoever put her up to that - or even just locked her up for a while. My operations are not assisted by dealing with spurious accusations from two-bit provincial sorceresses, and this is not the first time she's interfered with me."

She stood up smoothly. "Unless there was anything else? I have a great deal of business to tend to."

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Firstly the results from scanning the shields and armour, and this is definitely eyeglow raising. The material composition is ludicrously advanced. The data from analyzing these alloys is incredible. It's not even that they've just got access to some unobtainium either - there is an inner layer of a metallic liquid in each plate which will expand and harden on breaches, and the mesh joints flow around muscles like water. This is craftwork. And what's more surprising is that those same alloy readings can be detected in the skin and bones of the aliens. The baseline level of durability for the aliens is incredibly high. Whatever else is going on with them they appear to have mastered materials science to a level that significantly outstrips what even the Aotrs is capable of.

This isn't a 'don't even bother shooting' situation, though. While this material is tough and the soldiers are highly biologically augmented, this is still breachable with sufficient firepower. The analysis also suggests that the armour is particularly well designed for countering kinetic impacts; a coldbeam sidearm has a better chance of penetrating than a direct rocket launcher hit, and a physical slug won't even scratch the paint.

The melee weapons are made of similarly advanced material, but the readings from the grenades is particularly interesting. The chemical compounds within also defy easy analysis, but the gist seems to be that it is a combination nerve agent and highly vicious acid gas. That follows - if their armour plating is so good as to render projectile weapons harmless then using a weapon that can corrode armour and incapacitate a warrior directly is a neat bypass. This stuff is nasty - it'll kill unaugmented humans and can corrode vehicle armour. The aliens don't even bother with gas masks because it'll go right through them. You'd need full environmental sealing, and that seems incompatible with the no-electronics vibe of the aliens.

So what you're looking at, then, is incredibly tough, durable, and superhumanly strong bio-engineered super-soldiers armoured in high tech metal plating. They seem to be clueless about any form of electronics - there are no robots, no comms uplinks, when they want to talk to each other they need to yell. There's something curiously post-apocalyptic about all this. This is starting to read more like a high technology species that has, for whatever reason, lost or abandoned entire scientific concepts.

So for the material assets. Now for the magic. Now that you've got a chance to examine the hoop structure in more detail you can see that those glowing glyphs are a form of potent divine magic, highly correlated to gravity control. You can see the leader snake directing the floating carriage spheres with precise gestures they seem to move with his intentions. The circular and spherical shapes seem important for this spell matrix; the alien aircraft and sphere-tech are all as close to exactly circular as they can be made. There's a lot of advanced and idiosyncratic design to this, no doubt directly relating to the god or gods who provide the magic. In a way it's comparable to Gate technology, although it's followed an extremely different path.

This isn't a portal, then. This is actually more like a booster. If a grav-drive ship flies through this hoop then the localized gravity pulse will allow it to accelerate massively in speed. What the aliens are setting up seems to be some combination of a rail gun and a train track.

The other thing, surprisingly, is those spikes on their armour. It takes a while to work out what those are. They don't seem to have any sort of known blessing or enchantment on them, no communication spells, nothing that makes sense as a thing to voluntarily put on a soldier. It's not until the field is widened that it abruptly becomes clear that those are curses.

Not a curse like might make up part of a weapon. This is a curse like a divinity might put on a species it particularly dislikes. Physically, those things are basically just dead metal, but they're also vectors for some terrible dark magic and it's directed against the aliens - you can see where the blight attaches to their very souls. There is no way to tell what exactly they do, just that whatever it is, it's going to be bad.

The final bit of information from this work party is related to the biology of the canids. While they can and do speak to each other, often quite casually, in their native language, there does seem to be some more subtle information flow between them through pheromones. Oftentimes they will demonstrate an uncanny synchronicity of action following the release of olfactory agents from glands in the neck. Pack instinct, dialed up as far as biotech can take it.

The leader snake is surprisingly similar to the wolves on a basic biological level. This is a case where both species were upgraded to a baseline of strength and durability using the same biotechnology. If they perform differently in combat it will be due to training and social factors, not because they are different orders of being - though notably the snake lacks any sense of the pack instinct that directs the canids. It does seem to be able to direct the spheres, though, so it is quite possible that it is a divine spellcaster of some kind.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The line rings true. Nothing about these aliens indicates they have ever encountered a technologically superior enemy before. It's a subtle thing, only visible in the implications of things they don't do, but the impression will build up over time. For as exotic as much of their technology seems there also appears to be massive and basic holes in their development. For example, there don't seem to be shield emitters anywhere on their starships. They certainly have the power output from the cruiser to fuel quite a good one but there is no indication they have any ability to project one, and that seems like such an easier technology to master than the gravity drive they use.

How strange must their technological development have been, to master gravity before working out a 1.0 deflector dish? Or is it a conscious choice?

The impression continues after one of the crystals is bought in from a long range Gate. This crystal is incredibly designed - it's a magnificent crystal lattice made to microscopic specifications; a starburst of jagged spikes set to some incredible artistry. The manufacturing capability to produce something like this is the work of a high tech production fab. But it's also dead and inert. It's not a store for magic, there are no microchips, no spells on it, nothing that would obviously make it a weapon.

The purpose of these remains a mystery until the aliens start testing their array. The orbiting spheres fire their communications lasers into one of the nearby crystals - and then, brilliantly, the beam is cut and reflected through a grid of a thousand mirrors. The laser flows through the nodes over seconds and then descends down onto the planet, pulsing down a sequence of blinking lights to the base on the surface. Further tests see them place laser dots at various places in both the planet and in space.

The ability to design and manufacture these crystals and perform the orbital mathematics to set up this optical relay grid again speaks to an advanced species, and the decision to not use radio for the same purpose implies bizarre priorities. For the purposes of planetary communication this is frankly garbage; the bandwidth is sharply limited and messages can only be sent to or from certain locations. It's resistant to military strikes but even then only through quantity of targets. Again the typewriter analogy comes to mind.

*

Ten kilometers out from the base visual contact is finally made. A work team of around fifty aliens are building something.

They are setting up a large empty hoop five meters in diameter. The interior side of the hoop is marked with the same glowing '>>>' glyph pattern as the exterior of their spaceships, and the whole thing is held five meters off the ground by metal pylons. The structure is unpowered but nevertheless those symbols glow.

The work crew themselves are heavily armed and armoured despite engaging in physical labour, and the physical strength they are demonstrating is superhuman. Some of them are carrying those five meter metal columns on their shoulders like they're weightless. They have a set of five more of those large hollow rings, hovering off the ground on some kind of sled made from four antigravity orbs, also marked with the '>>>' sign.

The majority of the aliens are bipedal canine-like creatures. Many of them forego helmets, showing thick fur and wolflike facial structures. Their armour is painted in dark blue tones over a golden metallic substance. They are all armed with spears and tower shields in a curiously bronze age set of military kit. However, each trooper is also armed with a one-handed grenade launcher and wears a bandoleer of ammunition for it. Their armour is unpowered. Their entire formation is unpowered; no electrical signals from them at all. Finally, in addition to packs filled with miscellaneous gear, each soldier has a... spike on their left shoulder. Some sort of antennae looking thing, about thirty centimeters tall.

There is an officer for every ten soldiers, marked with a distinctive crested helmet and a lighter shade of blue armour. And there is also the unit leader who is a different species entirely. This is a serpentine naga creature, wearing elaborate and segmented armour a brighter blue still than the wolf officers. It's clear it is the leader but it gives few orders to its subordinates, leaving most of the talking to its subordinates. Upon its shoulder, coiled alongside the spike, is a small crystalline dragon, scales similar in sheen to the orbital crystal encountered earlier.

[Friction: roll 1d6 1-2 means the Azura have an advantage, 5-6 means you have an advantage, 3-4 is a mixed result
Friction Roll: 5 The Fallen Soul has evaded Azura observation during this first contact and can observe, bypass, or ambush this work party as desired.]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Blue!

Blue has genuinely never seen Orange so happy before. She's moving through her new tasks with the flawless bubbling energy that she only sees in herselves when they are at their most self-actualized. Somewhere in Orange's brain The Integer Had Gone Up. Blue didn't need to understand the problem that Orange had solved there, though. It was her happiness to defend too.

So, Orange was busy with cooking and entertaining Sarah, a both tasks she could excel at in her current mindset. Blue, then, was the executional aspect of whatever plan Orange had. They did not need to discuss specifics; the understanding was wordless that by choosing Blue, Blue was more qualified to figure out the necessary next steps than Orange was.

The big decision she needs to make at this stage, then, is how to project. Her hair-colour assigned personality matrix was shy, submissive and polite but that had never fit entirely comfortably with Blue's mind. To put it bluntly, she was usually right. She did the math, drew up the blueprints, and assigned the work schedules. The others could be more flexible with truth, morality, and engineering but she knew exactly where all the lines were. Stubbornness and submissiveness, then, were awkward bedfellows and she still hadn't entirely squared that circle.

Her default approach in a situation like this, then, is to take an interest. She was to be polite, ask lots of questions, and it was only over time that one might start to realize that those questions were taking on a Socratic character. Teasing out deeper understandings or highlighting certain contradictions. She specifically avoided lines that would lead to directly humiliating any guests - she wanted to give people a chance to explain to her 'how the world really worked'. No better way to find out exactly who you're dealing with then by giving them a chance to condescend to you.

Pink!

"How should I put this?" said Pink. "You know the joke about MyCrimes.txt? That's what you got. You got all the crimes. By all the criminals." Her voice lowers in seriousness. "All the crimes. By all the criminals. You'd be in less danger if you cloned the central database of the air force."

Black!

Her lips brush past yours on their way to your jawline. Her lips past your skin before you feel her teeth. The bites come - one, two, three - that one will leave a bruise. A mark.

"Yes," she said. "But that doesn't mean you should stop. Tell me stories. Tell me secrets. Tell me dreams. Tell me because you can't help yourself."

Her hands run up your chest, up your neck, over your lips. So many ways she could stop you talking. She's not doing them yet, but she could whenever she wanted to. She wants you to give her the chance; to let all the words in your head and heart come out in a never-ending stream, unfiltered by doubt or anxiety. When it's time for silence it won't be a sign that you will miss. How can she have the feeling of silencing you if you silence yourself?

She looks at you, black eyes reflecting the lights of the dance floor. It is not your duty to guess, she says with hands and fingers and embraces.

White!

"I am..." White's finger traced the edge of her bowl, voice searching. "... I just realized that I do not have a good answer to that. All of my designations have been an attempt to identify me by my function or features: Psychological Enforcement Subroutine, Volition, Command Node, Mistress, White. I do not have a name outside of my function and I am feeling a long way from my functions right now."

She refuses to let the thought go, or go unvocalized. She might be thinking this same thought eight times in parallel and be generating eight different excuses. If White doesn't speak it then the issue will only make itself known in catastrophe.

Now she's aware, vibrant, and focused. A new animation comes into her as she begins to take in Crystal, listen to the rhythm of her words, her mannerisms, her implications. She absorbs that energy, that personality, and effectively mirrors it. Some part of her wants to apologize for drawing an unqualified stranger into an advanced robopsychology problem, but she discards the thought as unnecessary. She is interested. She is interesting. She has offered and been accepted and the only failure would be not living up to her side of the dance.

So she looks at the hand holding hers, the lips touching her knuckles. She smiles and moves her hand forward. She lets her fingers touch Crystal's jaw with a casual possessiveness, then grip her chin. She delicately but firmly turns her head from left to right, letting her eyes examine the unicorn's face from different angles. More intimately than scientifically, but it's a good opportunity to indulge curiosities about the feeling of fur, muscle and bone.

"Everyone else here is a terrestrial animal," she said, releasing her grip. "But you chose a mythic creature. How did you conceptualize that? How do you know the mannerisms, how did you decide on the biology, the specifics? Nothing about you is accidental, nothing about you is default - you had to make decisions about everything to the smallest detail with no source material. What was that like, to want to be something that wouldn't exist until you made it exist?"

Breathless Dead

Redana and Bella!

Thunder roars as you stand against Sagakhan.

All her marks of humanity have fallen away. Her soldiers have left her. Her hands can no longer hold a sword. Her fine clothing and delicate butterfly wings have torn to shreds. And now her last daughter and tool has turned against her. Serpentine eyes stare and her necks sway in harmony only with themselves. There no longer seems any intelligence in her eyes. As you, Bella, have emerged from the shell of XIII, she has fallen into her own biologically programmed monstrosity.

And she lashes out like a monster.

Gone is skill and precision. Gone is Artemis' guidance, the deadly focus that keeps a true assassin on the path. Gone is Zeus' intervention. Gone is Aphrodite's cruelty. Your opponent here is nothing of the divine. Your opponent is the intelligence who found a newly lethal way to weave DNA together and the goddess who will not let the result die.

As she fights, she grows. As her heads multiply her body has to become shorter, more muscular and more bestial to support them. Soon she falls to all fours like a quadruped and still her teeth lash out, dripping with venom. In place of strategy, manipulation or cunning what will speak your end is grim mathematics. As the fight goes on you will become weaker and she will become stronger.

You may as well fight the rainforest that now towers around you in every direction of this former desert. As long as the rain falls there shall ever be life.

Alexa!

"Alright," said Beljani, gingerly stepping into the narrow gaps between bodies. "I believe she went this way."

Corpses on battlefields don't just pile up randomly; they're not evenly distributed over a range of territory. The way they fall tells the stories of battle. Large empty spaces followed by the concentrated wreckage where the lines crashed, verdant grass and tree sprouts from the emerging rainforest before reaching the toxic wastelands where concentrated volleys of SP fire left their scars. An experienced soldier can trace the lines of formation, shock, flight and pursuit as a detective might examine a crime scene.

And the scene left by Epistia is a nightmare. It's a highway of ruin. Kaeri and Alcedi pulled from the sky, phalanxes shattered - metal and bone sundered into pieces. And there, bloody red, she hunches atop the body of a horse, silhouetted by the lightning. Her broken legs have ceased to trouble her. Her fur is matted and jagged, standing on end, eyes filled with deep crimson light. She holds a Kaeri soldier like a broken doll in her right hand while her left holds her scythe, and heartsblood drips from her jaws. In ancient days they told the legend of the werewolf, and her she is - another monster gracing a battlefield increasingly filled with them.

She smoulders like fire. Where the spikes of her fur end wispy clouds of toxic SP smoke fume and hiss and crackle. She is one with the dread lord Ares, the aspect of terror itself.

Beljani's phalanx pulls nervously closer. The Assassin sets her jaw and then hands your head, Alexa, off to one of them to carry. She flicks her wrists and then rolls up her sleeves, the absolute icon of dignity.

"Well," she said, with a dreamlike confidence, drawing a shortsword and unfurling a razor-edged fan, "I cannot complain that I was not trained for this."

Vasilia and Dolce!

"If you do not mind," snapped Demeter, "I believe I have given you a sufficient quantity of mercy. You have dared much already, which I will permit as a courtesy to Aphrodite, but at this point I really must insist. Remember your place, mortal, and take what you have been given."

You do not need to look around to feel the blades of the hedge trimmers in the Queen of Spring's hands.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The approach continues without any sign of awareness from the alien ships. No active scans, no change in behaviour, no sense that they have any awareness of you whatsoever. Interestingly, there also doesn't seem to be any communication chatter - nothing on radio, no wireless signals, nothing on the electronic spectrum at all. Absolute silence, lending an uncomfortable credibility to the idea that psionics might be in use... right up until a close observation of one of the docking ports is made. There is a sequence of rapid direct blue laser lights blinking on the edge of one of the ports, sending a tightly focused beam at one of the incoming spheres which blinks back a rapid signal of its own. So: these vessels do communicate each other over direct optical transmissions. It's possible that they have some technology which enables complex communication over these links, but from here it looks eerily similar to a combination of morse code and 19th century naval signal flags.

Decoding the basics of this cipher is trivial. A whole host of basic navigational signals will take mere hours of observation for the brain trust back at xenolinguistics, but the simplicity of the codes also implies that they can't be assumed to be permanent. With a simple code system like this it's entirely possible for a force to rotate its codebooks, potentially extremely rapidly. Still, though, compared to the encrypted military communications of an AI-enabled species this is frankly amateur hour. Aotrs signals intelligence will have essentially no trouble decoding these communications...

If they have a direct visual on the emitter nodes. And that's where an interesting problem in the core-and-orbit system of the alien ships becomes evident. These nodes are all over the ships and the ships are in constant motion. Without a 360 degree visual on the alien craft it's possible that invisible exchanges may happen on the 'dark side' of the ships. There are also great numbers of these emitters and it's possible that they might launch massive bursts of decoy signals, with the 'true' communications only known to the aliens. These are ultimately extremely low-tech solutions, though: the aliens are foregoing all high quality data transmissions between their ships and all ability to communicate complex information. There may even be severe problems issuing basic commands to fighter wings performing combat maneuvers just because of the difficulty of 'hitting' them.

For a species to adopt a system of communication like this implies firstly a massive decentralization of authority, and secondly a massive concern about being in a hostile information environment. Similar systems are most commonly seen in species that have endured an AI uprising or are engaged with a civilization with enormous hacking power. Direct laser communication is as unhackable as a typewriter.

As this observation is taking place, one of the destroyer-spheres performs an unusual action. It detaches from the rest of the formation and begins to accelerate its orbit around the planet. This occurs without any engine spikes or thruster activity - it just slips seamlessly from a geosynchronous orbit into a rotational one, directly around the planet's equator. More unusually, the speed of the vessel seems to adjust up and down without any sort of electrical activity.

It's an eerie motion. This is not how spaceships should move. But, combined with the observations of the rest of the alien craft, suggests that Stab had the right idea. This is a gravitic drive.

Many species utilize various artificial gravity systems for their starships so the concept is not unthinkable. The idea is, simply put, that you arrange those artificial gravity systems externally to the ship. With such a system you could change the direction of up and down as far as the ship was concerned, making it 'fall' in certain directions as its primary propulsion. Further, by increasing or reducing the effect of gravity on the vessel, it could be made to speed up or slow down. An interesting blackboard theory, but not one that ever seemed worth the time or money to develop at the expense of conventional thrust drives.

This alien species seems to have thought differently; this is gravity-control technology taken to a state of absolute mastery. Though the top speeds of these ships seem to be slower than an Aotrs ship, their turning circles are ridiculously tight, making even the larger ships seem as maneuverable as starfighters. Of course, the great theoretical problem with grav-drives has always been "What happens if you fight outside of a gravity well?" The further these ships get from a planet or a star the more sluggish and unresponsive they will become, and in deep space they would be essentially becalmed. But here in orbit around a planet they move with an eerie grace, and if they operated around a gas giant or star they would be blisteringly quick.

The last observation of interest, then, is what exactly the destroyer is doing. When it slows down at regular intervals around the planet it releases a cloud of glittering crystals. It seems to be quite deliberate about this, taking the time to carefully target their orbital positions, and then moves on to the next point after half an hour at location. Like much of what these aliens do, this is a coherent action expressed using bizarre means and technology: This is clearly some sort of parallel to establishing a network of satellites around a planet. But what purpose these odd crystals serve - if they are some sort of mine or other weapon, or if they serve a role in communications, or some stranger or more mystical purpose - can't be determined without acquiring some for study.

Estimates are murky, but the destroyer seems to have launched over a thousand of these crystals, most smaller than human sized. If you weren't there to observe the process they would have seemed just like random space debris. At the end of its orbit, it resumes its position orbiting around the cruiser.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The reconnaissance mission proceeds without interruption. As night falls over Tanshin II finally the space anomaly comes into view.

It is a sphere - as geometrically perfect a shape as an advanced shipyard can construct. It is also heavily damaged. It looks like it has endured an extended barrage from kinetic weaponry or high speed asteroid impacts and there are massive rents in its structure. It is indeed Cruiser size, and it does indeed emanate an absurd amount of waste heat and light. Its reactor output is frankly ludicrous for a ship of its size, and no less so for the fact that it seems to be venting power externally to no effect. All of this would make sense if the ship had been critically damaged in battle, was venting plasma and was mid-way through a critical reactor meltdown, but hours go by with no fluctuation in the power output, let alone explosions.

But then the eye - or skullglow - is drawn to what at first seemed like the debris field around the sphere and it becomes apparent that it is not debris at all.

Around the Cruiser sphere orbits four smaller spheres, each around about the size of a Destroyer, in a strange miniature model of a solar system. One of these spheres demonstrates even more intense damage than the Cruiser, torn almost entirely in half by kinetic impacts, but the others are completely intact. Each sphere, large or small, is marked by a strange glowing band around its equator, a repeating symbol like '>>>' running in a full circuit around the orb and emanating a faint light blue energy glow. The smaller spheres are also almost electronically dead - they do not have reactors on board, and so presumably operate off battery power. Perhaps they refuel from the larger sphere, hence its disproportionate output?

None of the vessels compromise their spherical design, even for the purposes of weaponry or sensor arrays. Large sections are painted in midtone blue, and others reveal golden alloy metals of unknown composition. However, as observation continues, even smaller craft become visible - spheres again, but now fighter and heavy shuttle sized. In an organized but unhurried way they detach from the large craft and descend down onto the planet, and then hours later rise up. There's something uncanny about the way they move - these vessels do not have thrusters, do not leave engine trails, they just float with perfect silence and stillness. Even in atmosphere they are eerily quiet as they descend down to a distant point on the surface, unload, and depart again back to their carriers.

As unusual as these ships may be, the act itself is profoundly familiar. This is a bulk landing operation. A huge quantity of materiel is being shipped from orbit to the surface. The pace of operations suggests that this is a planned maneuver, but the visible damage to the ships suggests that it might be an evacuation. The site they have chosen as a base is nestled in a mountain range - an extremely defensible location. Even though there still has not been any signs of active scanning - not even radar pings - drawing much closer involves increasing risks of detection.