Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Glossary:

This work involves a very convoluted world with a lot of world-building behind it. The civilisation in which it is set posses highly advanced fictional technology, which would be all but mundane to the majority of the characters in the story. To help the readers understand, this first chapter will be a glossary of the contrived terminology used as well as a bit of exposition. The list will be expanded upon as the chapters are written, providing information on the alien technology and social terms used in the story. You can choose to ignore it or not. 

Technological:

Exotic technology/Exotech: The umbrella term used to refer to all alien technology as or more advanced than the Equinox’s own belonging to extinct cultures. Most famous among these are The Archivists, a long extinct culture that first appeared almost four billion years before the start of this story. Little is known of their origin, biology, or what ultimately destroyed them.

Homotypes: A term used to describe a large group of separate species, all belonging to one particularly noteworthy category with bizarrely homologous traits across all instances of their development. Homotype species often present as distinctly ‘humanoid’ species, almost identical to the long extinct human race. Nonetheless, homotype species represent the overwhelming minority of known species, being a rare anomaly closely linked to The Archivists. In the modern culture of the Equinox, their existence is taken largely for granted. The most commonly accepted theory is that they represent survivors of a long fallen civilization all but lost to time, separated across distant worlds. Whether they are the descendants of The Archivists themselves or simply products of their strange technology, no one can say for sure.

Zero Points: Anomalous stellar bodies almost impossible to detect. There is no known scientific explanation for their existence, properties, or origin. Deep-time studies indicate that Zero-Points are not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but rather a recent development of likely artificial origin. In effect, Zero-Points behave as instant non-inertial transportation wormholes with erratic behaviour. Travel through them is suicidal, but experimental recreation of their properties lead to the development of Transit drives. Zero-Points are often used as navigational waypoints for Transit. In greater complexity, Zero-Points are regions of space with uniform diameters of what would be approximately 1 Light Year. The shape of these bodies is modeled as being a perfectly uniform 3-dimensional geometric construct, with over a trillion identical faces. Despite not being made of any apparent material, or having any discernible mass, Zero-Points coast through space in predictable patterns distributed uniformly within galactic disks - yet are notably absent in intergalactic space. Some galaxies appear to have higher densities of Zero-Points than others, as well as some galaxies' Zero-Points differing from those of others in the exact number of faces present. The galaxy found to contain the highest density of Zero-Points is a large barred spiral galaxy in the process of colliding with another galaxy; referred to as the Archive Wheel Galaxy; on account of it seeming to be the home galaxy of the long lost civilization that acts as its namesake. Both galaxies are very close to the home galaxy of the Equinox - the Founder's Cradle Galaxy. In terms of behavior, Zero-Points are quite beyond description. Swathes of scientists from countless cultures have tried and failed to explain their properties, origins, and even mere shape for billions of years. In the most basic terms, however, they act as focusing mediums that warp the path of light - not dissimilar to light passing through a prism - and ultimately inverse images passing through their space. Select wavelengths of light, however, do not escape the focal point of a Zero-Point; somehow being either trapped or completely destroyed, in either case rendering invalid the laws of conservation of energy. Additionally, objects that enter Zero Points are almost inevitably lost; with strong evidence to suggest they are "spat" back out at another Zero-Point at random. No ship has ever passed through a Zero-Point and survived. Why they behave the way the do, who or what created them, and whether or not they are actually dangerous is yet unknown. 

Transit: The most advanced known form of Faster Than Light technology, facilitating instant non-inertial transportation and communication across effectively limitless distances, widely recognised by scientific circles as a physical impossibility. The exact mechanisms behind the system are a complete mystery, the technology having been developed from purely experimental reverse engineering of the effects of anomalous stellar bodies referred to as Zero-Points.

Transit Network/Trans-Net: The Equinox wide system of information distribution that flows through the interlinked FTL-communication modules of starships and stations. 

Veil-Mind/VM: A form of inorganic intelligence reliant upon the esoteric physics of Transit technology, broadly described as minds written upon the roiling scar tissue of the universe itself. Individual VMs rely on devices known as anchors in order to interface with a ship or facility’s systems; possessing no inherent computational or physical capacities of their own. Most less advanced civilizations in contact with the Equinox possess no meaningful analogue to VMs, mere AI representing utterly unrelated entities. Many cultures that have encountered the Equinox's VMs compare them to gods; although the comparison is staunchly denied by both the VMs themselves and their organic creators.

Artificial Intelligence/AI: AI cores are a highly advanced technology in the Equinox, but also subject to extreme restriction. Early in the golden age period of the Equinox culture’s development a massive catastrophe, resulting from malfunctioning AI behaviour, claimed the lives of over two-hundred trillion citizens of the equinox; forcing measures to be taken to prevent such tragedies from repeating. AI does not have the capacity to form sentience as understood by organic life forms, especially when networked in the manner used by the Equinox; but can still form autonomous programs. Within the Equinox, AI programs that have formed such autonomy are denied installment into non-civilian drones unless under the employ of recognised military organisations, but retain the same right to perpetuate their own existence as an organic being. 

Chained Artificial Intelligence Networks/CAINs: Made up of anywhere from ten to ten thousand independant AI programs, CAINs are the mainstay supercomputers of Equinox vessels and facilities. The AI cores making them up are each linked to one another under strict restrictions, each one programmed to prevent the others from attempting to rewrite their programs without direct VM or organic permission. The semi autonomous nature of the system grants it computational adaptability infinitely greater than that of ordinary computer operating systems. While not common, it is possible for one or more AI cores within a CAIN to gain autonomy; in which case the installed SI isolates the program in question by physically detaching it's core module.

Synthetic Interface/SI: Due to the heavy restrictions on the independence of Artificial Intelligence systems most AI cores not remotely controlled by VMs have simple governor programs designed to restrict AI autonomy to simple command responses. These programs, SIs, act to prevent rouge operation and ensure the AI under their watch cannot form deviant code. Malfunctioning SIs, however, can occur. This is not equivalent to AI autonomy, but rather being an error that can lead to dangerous and dysfunctional behaviour.

Systems Psychological Interface Key-Endomodule (SPIKE): Neural implant used by all organic species compatible with electrochemical communication systems from moment of gestation, allows access to remote feeds and controls, with key function of recording the developmental map of individuals’ neural profiles - allowing functional immortality through cloning technology.

EM-sails: A form of zero-reaction-mass inertia drives; highly reliant on exposure to powerful planetary magnetic fields to provide acceleration and thus extremely inefficient when used outside the area of effect of such forces. 

Social:

Merit: A form of digital resource accumulated by individuals through their lifetimes as a valuation of their social contributions. While not a currency, merit scores are relied upon to access higher investment services.

Constituency Citizens/Con-Cits: All sentients born or distilled within Equinox-control recognised space are granted official citizenship of their relevant Constituency; earning them select privileges by rights - such as food, housing, healthcare, etc. However, Con-Cits do not have access to the services that allow true Equinox Citizens/Equi-Cits to obtain functional immortality.

Distillation: To facilitate the extensive cybernetic requirements for daily life within the Equinox, as well as to compensate for the low rate of compatible same species reproductive pairs, wholly artificial gestation became the norm for ‘birthing’. In essence, the overwhelming majority of the population bear no direct biological relation with their families; instead being entirely artificial in origin.

Progenitor: Term used to describe the parental figures of individuals within the Equinox. Commonly the same species as their Progeny, though not biologically related in the strictest sense, with interspecies pairs often having at least two progeny - one of each of their respective creeds.

Chapter Text

Chapter One: Promise 

It was noon, and the sun was high. Nestled in a dull blue sky it beamed relentlessly through wisps of smoke that rose up from the eastern horizon. Amidst those azure heavens small dots of flying creatures drifted west, fluttering on membranous wings. Red reeds rustled in the breeze, casting soft shadows onto the ochre earth below. Gentle sighs filled the air as they swayed to and fro in a melancholic dance; warm wind rushing west overtop their blades. Besides the sound of the reeds, however, today was quiet. Just as it had been yesterday. 

To the small creature that basked in the sun's warmth, perched on a solitary stone, this meant nothing. Its brownish scales flushed ever so slightly redder as the blood beneath them warmed, small ear-lets flicking to each rustle and shift that they heard, while golden eyes darted attentively between the reeds that rose up around it. 

In richer times it would have sought to ambush one of the small leather-winged fliers still yet to rouse from their roosts. But nearly all the fliers were gone. Only a few could still be spotted moving west, visible as little more than dots above. Fewer still, unfledged, starved in their nests. Lately, instead, the small scaled thing had resorted to scrounging for armoured grubs and crawlers that hid in the dry clay; but today an exciting scent wafted into its senses.

There was a flier near, one that smelled of fresh blood. The distinctive metallic tang caught in the creature’s nostrils, sending shivers of anticipation and hunger into the basal lobes of its mind. 

Caution might have deterred the small creature from investigating in more fortunate times; but hunger urged it on. Times had been hard of late, and its usual prey scarce. But these lean days were not unfamiliar happenings; so far as it was concerned. Often, the fliers, runners, and bigger creatures would leave; fleeing in one way or another. For weeks now the eastern air had bore a heavy scent of smoke, with fire surely in its wake. But such a thing hardly deterred the small creature; as no fire had ever reached its homely burrow before. What’s more, the wildfires that it knew always moved plenty slow enough for it to scurry to safety. But, something was different this time, even if the primitive little thing couldn’t hope to understand what it meant.

More had fled than ever before, with waves of creatures that had never strayed this far east among them. Strangest of all were the tall, white, things that had been here just before the smoke could first have been tasted in the air. They had stalked methodically along the red reeds, turning over rocks and digging up burrows, while seeming to hunt indiscriminately. Fliers, runners, crawlers, armoured things, and even small scaled creatures like itself were all plucked from their hiding places and stuffed into devices which it couldn't begin to understand. And then they were gone, gone west, as strangely as they’d come. 

Again, the tantalizing smell of blood wafted over its basking stone, originating from somewhere closer to the riverbed, where tall orange spires of wood struck up from the sea of red reeds. Today it would hunt a flier again, it impulsively decided, a meal much preferable to the bitter grubs and crawlers it had been forced to endure of late. With a faint shake it rose up, stretching its lethargic limbs as it prepared to hunt. It soon skittered into the reeds, leaving its bathing rock’s small clearing behind. 

Six stout legs made short work of the uneven terrain; weaving rapidly and soundlessly between the scarlet singed stalks of flora all around it. Shadows scattered and concealed it, parched soil softened its footfalls, and the breeze blew favourably westward - hiding the predator's own scent as it stalked closer to its target. Eventually, it slowed, hugging the ground close, as it drew upon its prey. 

In the middle of a clearing, formed of crushed reeds, sprawled a small flier - still lacking its adult coloration - which lay shivering on the ground. One of its four leathery wings was nothing but a crumpled and bloody mess beneath it - maimed beyond any hope for recovery. It had almost certainly fallen, perhaps knocked out of the air by a gust of wind too strong for its fledgling wings to bear, or simply fallen from a nearby spire on which it had been nested. An injury like that would kill it anyway, and already its movements were weak. 

It was, nonetheless, far from easy prey. The small scaled creature knew that even a young flier like this one bore razor-sharp claws and venom tipped fangs; such that one wrong move could spell doom for it. So, it circled more as it sought an opening. All it needed was an angle from which its victim's bulging black eyes could not see it, as they rarely triumphed in their other senses. Stopping between two larger red bushels, having found its desired approach, the creature readied itself. In a flash, then, it struck. 

Leaping out of the reeds, the creature wrapped its jaws around the flier’s fragile neck, and bit hard. With a wet crunch and a singular whimper, the crippled creature died; letting rich warm blood flood the victorious predator’s maw. 

The small scaled thing wasted no time eating, voraciously stripping the cadaver of flesh altogether; leaving nothing but pink bones and warm viscera to congeal on the dusty ground. Satisfied, the creature returned to its rock, to bask again in the remaining rays of sunlight as it digested. 

As the hours passed, the sky slowly grew much darker, even despite the sun’s relatively unchanged position, while clouds of smoke seemed to thicken above. These dark, ashen, and noxious smelling formations rolled in from the east; drawing only frustration from the basking creature as they blotted a degree of the sunlit-warmth it desired. 

They were illuminated surreally by the vanishing sun, waves of yellow light washing over and through the grey above. From the east, however, a different light grew with a blinding fervour, as if a new sun was rising on the horizon. A brilliant white glimmer caught in the creature’s disinterested eyes; but no response to its senses were to be found within its instincts. 

The air itself grew warmer, buzzing with static as though a storm were coming, such that the small creature had to pant so as to cool itself. For a few seconds, its primitive mind attempted to process the information before it. With no prior experience or even instinct to draw upon, the small thing stayed where it perched; considering whether or not to scurry towards its burrow. Even as the smell of burnt flesh and singed earth wafted on the growing eastern wind, it remained undecided. 

Brilliantly, the sun still shone in the distant heavens, gilding the whole world below for just a moment more. To the small creature’s yellow eyes, the slowly setting sun meant nothing. Only the end of today, and the promise of tomorrow. But that promise was hollow.  

The small creature never felt its flesh melt away, sublimated and boiled off. It never saw its silicate perch turn to gas and molten slag. It never heard the shrill scream of light and ions that bombarded the place it had been moments before. In an instant, it was gone.

Lepin:

They were behind schedule. That much was painfully clear. In the distance, smoke and steam could already be seen rising like a wall, shielding the immense Terraformer Monitors from sight. Not that any wall could hide their light. Slivers of blinding white brilliance were clearly visible where the smoke met the ground, marking the underbellies of the colossal machines that marched inevitably closer with each passing day, or perhaps more aptly Rotation. There remained a vast expanse of red coloured hills and earthen mounds separating the smoke clouded front from Lepin’s location, so the ground on which they stood now would be safe for some time to come. 

With a lazy gaze, Lepin watched the small crawling things that shuffled between the reeds, and the chittering winged ones that darted from one fungal spire to the next; knowing they would live as they were for a little while longer. 

Still, that the Monitors could be seen at all meant that their team was lagging behind. Not dangerously so, of course, but lag meant poor performance. Poor performance meant they wouldn’t meet the quota. Just as they had done almost every working-week, or Cycle as Command called it, within recent memory. 

Colony Central Command officially recommended teams like theirs to bring in at least one full inventory of samples each expedition in order to achieve the bonus Merit score by Cycle’s end. They’d yet to meet it even once all season. 

Sighing, Lepin leant back against the transport pod’s hull, and queried the rest of their team’s status. The chime pinged digitally through the local network, relayed by the pod’s communication systems to the SPIKE implants of the whole team, like the ghost of a tap on the shoulder. As their horns contacted the hull behind them, they rubbed uncomfortably against the metallic barrier.

Not a heartbeat later, a throaty voice thought-spoke through the shared SPIKE network, words without sound streamed directly into Lepin’s mind, as one of their team responded.

“ We are nearly done, friend. Just one last sweep to see if we missed anything significant . Worry not. ” 

Diltat, their stocky arthropodal colleague, wasn’t awful; even if their attitude of workplace ambivalence never helped with meeting the quota. They were hardly lazy either, just unbothered by the pressure Command always put onto their teams out here. 

In a way, Lepin envied them. They had nothing to prove. Nothing to strive for. Work was work, life was life, what happens, happens. 

There was not long to stew in such ruminations, though, as another voice streamed through the network. It was higher pitched, a teasing drawl lingering after each emphasised word, and jingled merrily through the network in stark contrast to the gruffness of Diltat’s. 

“ Lep, it might go faster if you could be bothered to do some of the work yourself. ”

Lepin clicked their beak, breezing in deeply through the nostrils set within it, in mock-annoyance and chose to ignore the comment. They did, however, intentionally let their SPIKE relay an approximation of their response to the others’. 

What passed for frustration to one creed could easily resemble joy to another, after all; but the universally mandatory implants they all had connected to their respective analogues to central nervous systems did the best they could to provide context.

“ Aw, don’t be like that! Might be fun, even. Sometimes the little things can put up a sweet chase. Gets the heart beating ,” cooed Vykel’s thought-speak, “ Maybe we’d even meet one of Ari’s beloved quotas for once .” 

“Very funny Vykel. We both know how well that went down with Command last time. You lot do the nabbing, I stay here with our ride.” Thought Lepin aloud, their own chittering voice the loudest sound around them.

“ Command might have been nicer if you’d managed to nab something without breaking their expensive sampler boxes, you know .” Even over the SPIKE network, Lepin could almost see Vykel’s rubbery face-plates pulling taut, in their creed’s equivalent of a smirk, with each mental word. 

Before Lepin could respond in kind, another thought-voice joined the chorus, with a softer tone.

“ Not to be rude, but it might go much better by far if all of you, frankly, stopped just ‘nabbing’ things and actually followed protocol. We have, like, twenty-something specialist tools specifically designed to make sampling more efficient… “ 

Even for as long as the four of them had been doing this, Arimy -the poor little thing - never seemed to learn just how little anyone else cared about this busywork. ‘Well ,’ Lepin thought to themself with a chittering sound, ‘ maybe not little. They are taller than me .’

Arimy meekly hesitated, before continuing. “ Have you ever, well, actually used any of them Vykel? ”

A shiver of flustered indignation wafted through the network, radiating from Vykel’s SPIKE. 

“ Jabbing them with seeker drones and knocking them out with sound guns is just boring! Where is the fun in that? ” they groaned over the link. 

“ Well, um, completing the quota? ” Arimy hesitantly answered.

“ I said fun , Ari. Quotas are not fun. If I am going to have to be out here ‘sampling’ these annoying things I am going to try and enjoy it. ” 

“Right. Is that why you've never managed to meet a quota, then, Vykel?” Lepin utterly failed to suppress a smirk-like expression of their own, the skin of their lips stretching along their snout, as they thought-spoke aloud into the network and surroundings alike - their own chitters slyly assertive in the silence of the world around them. 

“ Har har. I'll have you know I've met plenty of targets and quotas in my time. ” Vykel rebutted, a lighthearted venom in their mind’s voice.

Interrupting them all, Diltat’s deep inner voice gruffly rang out over the network. 

“ The way I see it, all that matters is that it gets done. All this is really just busy work anyway. There’s a reason Command assigns youngsters to these jobs .” 

“ ‘Youngsters’ ? Dil, I think you’re a little old to be a youngster… ” Vykel responded.

“ Fine, fine. They only assign these jobs to youngsters, and lazy good-for-nothings like me... ” The slightest edge of melancholy could be felt as their old teammate briefly left their thought-speak trailing off, even while the other chortled musically. 

However, before Vykel could give a snide comment of their own, Diltat continued. 

“ But, then again, I suppose they put you in both categories, Vykel. ” 

Lepin chose to tune out the SPIKE network as the two launched into ever more personal - yet somehow still well entirely well meaning - insults. All the while, Arimy weakly attempted to convince the two to leave each other alone. 

‘ You’re too kind for your own good, sometimes, Ari …’ Lepin thought to themself, their eyes dullening, as their mind wandered off once more.

For as long as the four of them had worked together, this was how it had gone. The three more charismatic ones bickered relentlessly, always getting in each other’s way, with no care for the consequence of their work. Arimy was always the one to clean up the mess they inevitably left behind. 

Lepin always felt especially sorry for them. The two had been close friends for as long as they could remember - having been distilled together at the same facility, always playing together during their checkups there - and both shared a sentiment of distaste for the menial nature of their latest assignment. 

For Lepin, it felt so wasteful. So slow, and dull. But it was different for Arimy. Unlike Lepin, or any of the others, they had a lot riding on them. Especially after everything the war had taken from the homotype’s family. In a way, Lepin was lucky. They had a lot to prove, yes, but at the end of the day there was not much external pressure. 

Again, they let a hiss of air escape their nostrils, letting their curved horns butt into the stiff metal of the transport pod behind them once more. With a sluggish motion, Lepin tilted their long snout to let their gaze sweep over the offending machine.

Looking at it for what felt like the thousandth time, it really was an ugly thing. Nothing like the images of new models to be seen on the Trans-Net. A bulky metal tube, four metres wide and maybe ten or so from one end of the cabin to the other, with a sturdy pair of fixed EM-sails running along the top and bottom. 

It had a single wrap-around viewport made of some sort of thick, reinforced, glass analogue; that at least let them see out of it with their own eyes instead of relying on cameras and screens. An array of compressed gas vents - acting as reaction control thrusters - peppered the pill-shaped hull at various points. 

There were no flourishes, panels, or aerodynamic structures to be seen, the only thing that stood out being the floral Colony Insignia that branded the rugged craft as declaration of ownership. That and a few embedded and coloured symbols for identification. 

The EM sails were no more impressive. Just parallel rudders of metal that ran double the hull’s length on the top and bottom which formed prongs at the front. Seams along them exposed just enough of the complex machinery within to look the part without actually risking any damage to said complex machinery. 

Here, leaning against its hull, was the farthest Command officially allowed Lepin stray from the pod, as its designated pilot. From time to time the young quadruped had, of course, defied that order; often to no real consequence. But the novelty of rebellion got old faster than they’d expected; at least in this aspect of their life. Others still held the thrill, even if that too was fleeting of late.

They looked out to the horizon again, lazily trailing their eyes over the ocean of waving red grass and pillar-like trees that struck out like islands in a sea of blood, until they settled again on the almost mist-like zone where they knew the Monitors hid. 

Only the light of their terraforming-beams were visible from the ash clouds; far too bright to be concealed. Ionised particles funnelled into the rock below by high intensity lasers, melting away everything and anything in their way, as the machines cut the very crust of the world into a perfect jigsaw of artificial continents. Along the way, wiping away all unrecorded traces of the life that had evolved here over millions of years. 

It left a sour taste in the back of Lepin’s throat just thinking about it. Sure, they would put everything - mostly - back as they had first found it; that's why they were doing this whole sampling escapade. Catalogue what came before so it can be recreated on a reborn world. 

But, still, it felt cruel. 

Lepin let their mind drift half asleep, letting their wandering mind melt into blissful lethargy, as they leant even further against the hull and stared off into the distance. 

Their creed was that of the Kyral, a quadrupedal species of civilisation-builders that stood on four of six total limbs. Their horned skull, with forward-facing eyes set on either side of a beak-tipped snout, was held upright above an elongated and curved thorax. Their skin was hidden under a downy coat of grey and white fuzz, striped patterns running vertically along the parts of their jaws bare of beak, while the rest of their body was hidden by a puffy environmental suit. 

Still gazing, they finally spied three figures approaching from the hills below. Two substantially taller than the third. 

Hailing from the creed of the Avyxel; Vykel was tall and lanky, their limbs double jointed, with a pale teardrop shaped head; pointed ears adorned with simple chrome piercings. They wore the same plain white environmental protection suit as the others, though even its dense material could not make them look any less skinny compared to their companions. 

Puffing out their chest, Vykel delivered an overblown flourish and bow as they came close enough to be heard audibly without the network.

“And we have returned. We must humbly apologise for leaving our valiant pilot extraordinaire waiting…” 

They grinned, the leathery flaps of their lips lifting to expose the sharp teeth within, before nudging the Homotype beside them. 

Arimy, about a foot shorter than the Avyxel beside them, was a fairly unassuming biped; a curly mane of hair going down to the sides of their cheeks and all around their flat, humanoid, face. They side-eyed the tall figure beside them, indignation flashing only briefly in their eyes.

“Let's- well, let's just get these loaded and get home. Tiomi and I need to finish preparing.” Arimy’s expression was a pained one, with a forced smile pulled taut across their face, that went unnoticed by the lanky being beside them.  

“Fine, but no way Lep is getting out of helping us with this much at least. Come on, give me a hand with these samples.” 

The quadruped shook their head exaggeratedly, shifting away from their spot against the pod’s hull, with a teasing smirk of their own stretching up their snout.

“Sorry Vykel, but Diltat takes priority. Who am I to neglect helping the elderly, after all.”

The biped scoffed, rolling their wide eyes, which only further encouraged Lepin.

“You said it yourself, they're not a spry youngster like the rest of us.” Lepin said, as they moved to help the insect-like Ilikay slot various samples and instruments away in all their hard to reach places. 

Diltat, of the Ilikay creed, was a squat figure, their armoured torso a cylindrical barrel stood on four stout legs with a flattened dish of a head atop it; compound eyes glistening black. They had to hop awkwardly to reach anything higher than the first few rows of sample slots; their secondary arms handing Lepin the rest to place up above.

The two lanky bipeds beside Lepin and Diltat put away the rest, although Vykel kept huffing and puffing with feigned indignation. Mostly feigned, anyway. 

Even then, Vykel held themselves with an overblown confidence, moving with purpose and prowess as they stowed their own sample tubes. Their arms were much longer than any of the others, reaching to the floor and to the highest parts of the storage bay with ease, possessing a second elbow even before their wrist. 

Together, the four made short work of the task, passing brief exchanges with one another as they did so, before closing the petal-like panels of the compartment and making their way inside. 

The pod’s interior was no less ugly than the exterior, furnished with four simple flight seats and a few railings to cling to here and there. The walls were padded with a pale white foam fabric, patched between hard girders and plates that likely only concealed a thin layer of machinery before the outer hull itself. It was very clearly as utilitarian as it was unfit for anything more than short hops within the atmosphere. 

One by one the four took their seats, the segmented structures automatically changing shape to conform to their occupants; a necessity with the variety of body form taken by civilisation-building creeds; even among just those that shared a sufficiently compatible environmental preference to share the same Colony. 

Vykel and Diltat took the two places at the back, sharing quips and jokes as they strapped in for take-off, while Lepin and Arimy sat at the front. Either forward couch could serve as the pilot’s, but the controls had been tuned to only respond to the Kyral’s commands. As Lepin settled in silently, they placed one hand on a joystick, taking control of the power and orientation of the EM sails currently just idling with a low, nearly inaudible, whine. Their other hand was placed on the side of the console, ready to power on any other systems they needed for flight. 

To their right, Arimy visibly braced themself nervously for what was coming. 

The two had always agreed to disagree when it came to the joys of flight. To Lepin, it was where they truly felt free. Their friend, on the other hand, hated it with every fiber of their being.

A voice snapped Lepin from their thoughts, along with a light kick to the back of the couch from the Avyxel in the back.

“Enough stalling, Lep. I have a meet-up arranged with Daith - you remember, that Borithite from the All’s Well the other day - and I do not want to be late.” Vykel cooed from behind them.  

“They seemed nice.” Arimy affirmed, gripping the sides of their seat.

“Yeah, home it is.” A smile crossed Lepin’s face, as they gripped the controls a little tighter.

Arimy:

Somewhere deep in the hull, something changed. The gentle whine of vibration rose to a quivering growl, as engines of mysterious nature began to awaken. 

To Arimy’s side, Lepin absentmindedly tapped their four fingers against the side of the pilot’s console; while gently feathering the joystick that controlled Founders-only-know-what parts of the pod. 

They had been forced to fly in this deathtrap more times than the Homotype cared to think about - let alone count - but it never ceased to unsettle them. Why Command still hadn’t decommissioned it, they couldn’t imagine.

Below, the ground smoothly fell away. Red reeds became a crimson sea, the bare patches of yellowing earth blending into floral masses until invisible, as they continued to rise. 

The hull itself rattled, unseen mechanical joints they didn’t want to think about beginning to creak and strain as the powerful EM-sails tore the ungainly machine through the air. Growling became a roar as Lepin throttled the engines to full power. 

Arimy trusted them, mostly, but no amount of trust made this acceptable. Why anyone actually wanted to spend their lives flying these things - manually or on autopilot - they couldn't imagine; even whenever Lepin tried explaining it in painstaking detail. But home was a long way away, so it was this or nothing. 

Gradually, the growl disappeared, winding down again to a low, breathy, whine, as they stopped ascending. Hovering in place, just below the cloud layer, Arimy could see so much beneath them. 

They let their eyes trace how the trickling corpses of rivers wound through the dry floodplains below, how the bushier red vegetation followed them in desperate clumps - darker than the red reeds that sprawled indiscriminately over the ochre ground. 

They could make out crags and outcrops of untamed rock, still yet to be broken down by the fungal spires whose congregations looked like pale freckles from as high up as they were, that gave away the primeval nature of this young world. 

In the far distance, to the east, the Monitors were visible now. Silver slabs wreathed in billowing smoke and steam, vapourised rock spewing up from the undersides of the immense structures and bright light leaking out from deep beneath the monstrous things. 

But the sight that never ceased to strike them the hardest was what lay behind the monitors - even farther east. Great, expansive, plains of black rock, interspersed by red hot veins of bubbling magma, and tracks of glittering machinery that looked like giant sutures pinching the bleeding flesh of the world into shapes and forms it was never meant to be. 

This clear mark of the terraformers’ progress wasn’t just in the east. In actuality, the Monitors had been sweeping clean the old world for over sixty years now, closing in on Colony Central - home - from all sides. 

The terraforming programme in its penultimate phase, reshaping the world to make way for something else. Arimy had travelled to fully terraformed worlds with their family before, the beauty of which could hardly be described, and felt sure it would be a beautiful world here too, in time. All this nightmarish work would simply be the price paid to perpetuate their paradise. 

Somewhere deep inside, a twang of guilt rang out. Deeper still, rang one of pride. This wild world was being tamed. They held responsibility for it, for better or for worse, and for the form it would take in the centuries to come. 

Before anything more could happen, however, they were suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to rapidly evacuate the contents of their body cavity; as the whine flew straight past a growl and into a blood curdling scream. The whole Transport-Pod tore forwards, slamming unceremoniously through the air, as the EM-sails’ power wrenched the three unsuspecting passengers back into their seats.

Lepin:

Lepin just smiled, as they let the sensations of the speeding vessel flow through them. Each micro manoeuvre caused a barking yelp from the engines even as they kept screaming forwards. The one thing they liked about these decrepit old machines was the sound, the sensation, the power. A top notch racing pod at half thrust would cut through the air twenty times faster than this bumbling thing could at its maximum, but Lepin wouldn’t be able to sense it. They wouldn't even hear it. No ear-splitting sound of engines, no thundering hull, just silky silence. 

Power beyond measure, yet no way to experience it. No challenge or fear. It was something Arimy would never understand, no matter how much Lepin tried to explain it to them. But that was the real beauty of it. That feeling was theirs, shared inherently only with those of common mind. 

The ground raced away behind and beneath them. Crags and lakes, forests and sandy plains, all whisked away as they tore towards home.  

Eventually the uneven terrain gave way to flatlands, lush open fields interspersed only with towering stone formations onto which the denser forestry clung. And there, at the heart of it all, was Colony Central Command. 

One-hundred years ago it was a starship, named the Calis Corrian. A truly massive vessel, it had become the place the colonists called home for as long as any that were distilled there could remember. 

Looking at it, it seemed impossible that it could have travelled the stars once. It seemed implausible that it had even once been a single solid structure. Sweeping arcs of hull plate formed roads and districts, engine pods sliced open and resealed to form massive cylindrical towers, fuel tanks made into, well, mostly still fuel tanks. 

All over the site were the telltale signs of habitation. Row after row of blocky metal buildings housed the countless tens of thousands of colonists - packed into surprisingly comfortable spaces - while vast dome gardens and sprawling markets peppered the spaces between more industrial locations. 

At the centre of it all was the star port. Just forty years ago it had been nothing more than the skeleton of the original ship - then propped up as a kilometre tall tower - on which the docking bays and command centres had been nestled. So Lepin had heard, anyway. They weren’t that old.

Now it was the anchor point of a towering space elevator - if only a temporary one - that connected their colony to the rest of the Equinox like never before. Even from up here, it seemed as though invisible hands had drawn a silver line from the centre of their home to the heavens themselves. A vast, segmented, structure made of columns of semi-flexible compartments lined up and spiraling along one another in a tight helix. At the very top of the impossibly thin spire, Lepin knew there was a massive station. It was much too far away to be seen from their elevation, but they had seen it through telescopes before. 

A huge centrifuge spun around complex arrays of docking ports, cargo bays, and industrial facilities, forming a circular ring around the bustling nucleus of the star-port itself. Ever since its installation all orbital transportation had been rerouted through the space elevator alone, for the sake of efficiency. 

Up far above, the torch-drive plumes of distant ships could be seen burning like day-light stars, powering to and from the star-port tirelessly. In the past, Lepin would lay out on the roof of Arimy’s residence, with their little bipedal friend beside them, and just watch the ships. 

Lepin would talk for hours about where they thought each one was going or coming from, sometimes until the early morning. 

That was where and when Lepin had decided that the stars would be their destination. 

Their bipedal friend, on the other hand, would just laugh. Not in a cruel way, but because they found the whole notion so overwhelming they didn’t know what else to do.

As Lepin feathered the EM sails again, slowing down for the final approach to their designated berth, a wave of nostalgic regret washed over them. They would have given anything to experience that again; that innocent sense of freedom. Everything had just become so complex so quickly, it seemed. 

One day they were running around as children, talking about nonsense and stargazing, the next they were filling out citizenship applications, filing for apprenticeship programmes, and doing busywork that existing automated systems could do ten times better a thousand times faster. 

All while stressing out over commendations and merits in preparation to join the ranks of the immortals that lived among the stars above them. 

Then the war had come, forcing Lepin to watch as everything their closest friend had ever known fell apart. 

With a clunk, the pod slotted into its birth. Valves hissed, clamps shook, and motors whirred as they locked themselves into position automatically. Around them, the lights of the monitors powered off just as the cabin’s illumination switched from dull white to a pale orange, signalling the crew to disembark. 

Lepin’s smile receded, as Arimy’s grew. 

“We’re home.” They said together.

The star-port lobby was busy. It always was. The four teammates parted ways with little hesitation, each hurrying to some obligation or another. 

Vykel strutted away with an enviable swing in their lanky step, not even trying to hide their impatience to get ready for their latest social excursion. 

If Lepin could be bothered, or spiteful enough, to keep count, the list of Vykel’s attempts to spark a deeper relationship would leave their tall friend burning with shame. 

It was hardly unusual for someone to not settle down for one person, especially not with how young they were in the grand scheme of things, considering how little emphasis romance was given in the culture they had all grown up in. 

But it was no secret - no matter how much Vykel wanted it to be - that their particular endeavours had been distinctly unsuccessful. 

That being said, even Lepin - hardly experienced themself - felt hopeful about their friend’s latest find. Daith seemed like a charming enough person when they met each other last time; much more earnest than Vykel’s last few objects of affection. Sweet and energetic, they seemed the perfect match. But only time would tell. They had hundreds of years ahead of them to sort these questions out; if they chose such a path in life.

Silently, Lepin wished them luck. 

Where Diltat was headed only the Founders might know, the squat insectoid never being terribly forthcoming with details of their personal life. Watching them waddle off alone into the crowd, lights bouncing off the flat plate of armour that topped their head, a slight lump formed in the back of Lepin’s throat. 

Diltat was old, older than anyone else they knew, and they had never seen them with anyone - family or friend - outside of work. Joke as much as they might, it was strange for someone over a century old to be assigned to grunt-work programmes like this, and they couldn’t help but wonder if everything was alright for them. 

Spotting Arimy near the rapid transport terminals serving the residential districts, they exchanged a friendly and mutual wave, before losing sight of their brown-haired head in the crowds. Lepin had heard plenty enough from their friend to know that nothing pleasant was waiting for them at home. Arimy’s surviving progenitor had been running around in circles to get ready for an arrival, one long awaited and desperately needed. It had been commandeering every moment Arimy had to spare. The lump grew heavier yet. 

Lepin was fortunate, with all their own family and friends being here on-world, so the war had taken nothing from them. The small joys of being a nobody were hard to appreciate, though, when the repercussions of renown were so close at home. 

In a way, the Says - Arimy’s family - had been as close to Lepin as their own. That fancy house had always been quiet, but it used to promise an inevitable return to merry ruckus. Now, the silence cut wounds deeper than they were ready to experience. 

Alone, Lepin sighed through their beak. 

They had an obligation of their own. In theory it could wait, but there was terribly little left to excuse postponing it. And as fun as it could be to mess with their… contact… well, Lepin felt this wasn’t the right time for it. 

Soon enough they began to amble their own way to a transport tube destined for the market district. Once settled into the cramped capsule they pinged a familiar SPIKE through the Colonial Network. Not even a minute later their ping was reciprocated - along with a nonverbal reminder of where to meet.  Stepping into the awaiting transport, they closed their eyes. In their mind, to no one at all, they spoke. 

‘ Things will get better, Arimy, I promise .’

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Congratulations 

It was dusk, and the twin suns of Barkinire’s World had only just begun to fall, scattering dim light over the dark towers of the Capital. The half-night sky, fading from blue-black in the west to tepid lilac in the east, bore five hundred mock-stars that burned with the Emperor’s fury. They grew dimmer with each heartbeat, as their distance from the planet below grew, while bearing down on one more that burned brighter than all the rest.

Beneath, ten billion souls saw that lone not-star, to which their hated masters hurled the last of their once mighty forces, and wept with joy.

Black towers whistled as the evening winds crashed around them. Streets wound like veins, twisting and pulsing, from one dark spire to the next. But the streets were hidden; the citadel’s veins clogged by a moving mass of thousands of bodies and choked by a sea of obliterated machinery and burning corpses. Tens of thousands marched unarmed on the gates of the citadel, tens of thousands more screamed and wept a single word, hundreds of thousands watched and waited to take the place of the fallen at the front. Most wore little more than rags, while many were clad by nothing but the grime and calluses that caked their withered forms. They climbed upon the broken wrecks of their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, strangers, lovers, all that lay strewn on the streets where they now stood.

At the gates stood perhaps one hundred that faced the swarming horde. Bearing black armour that glistened with a wet sheen, rippling over their well-fed figures, they brandished terrible lance-rifles. With a sweep, light whistled from their weapons and burnt the flesh away from the line of bodies that threw themselves forwards - feeding smoking piles that wrapped around their final stand. But the piles grew closer without stagger or surrender, as those they’d called slaves marched on them without end.

Flags made of scrapped fabrics - beaming a stitched motif of The Emperor slumped headless on a rotten throne - flew ravenously among the tide. Still, they screamed and wept and chanted one word. To the masses, it meant freedom. But ‘freedom’ was not the word. At the gates, the one hundred defenders stepped further back, pelted with detritus and bodies, as their resolve wavered. The war machines that had served to keep them safe from the consequences of their cruelty for all these thousand centuries already lay scattered and torn asunder in the streets beyond - fused with the remains of their biological companions-in-arms.

The downtrodden many had risen in a single unstoppable wave. They had thrown themselves at the machines, gripping with burning fingers at every bolt and cable they could find, and tore until it was done. The guard had been five thousand strong in flesh and steel combined when the suns had risen that very morning, and the whole citadel had known not the presence of even one of the peasants that flooded it now. One hundred soldiers survived - having watched the masses rip their fellows limb from limb in blind rage and desperation - but they knew no freedom was coming for them.

The Emperor was dead. The war was lost. Their craven enemies, the mock-gods of opulence they had been told would fold in one fell swoop, had won. The great Imperial fleets were gone, their grand armies erased, their glorious elite bloodlines hung, drawn, and quartered. The killing blows were not only struck from beyond but from within as well, by the hands of the low-blood slaves and slaughter-bound races they had been told would forever serve their whims. Now, those very masses screamed and wept one word. To the soldiers it meant death. But ‘death’ was not the word.

Outside the ebony citadel, sprawling slums crawled over the face of that wretched world. Hovels, ruins, pits, and warehouses; all had been the unwilling home of the bloodied people that now marched on their captors’ decrepit palaces. The guards there had long been eradicated, butchered with all the dignity they had shown their subjects, and now only those of the masses too weak to go on remained.

Somewhere, a mother cradled her child. She whispered and whimpered one word, rocking the weeping newborn as her malnourished body trembled. To her, that word meant a future. But ‘future’ was not the word. In one day, the world order had toppled. When news of what was coming spread, it lit a spark most had thought would never again ignite.

"Equinox!” the mother gasped, eyes wet with joy.

“Equinox!” the guards cursed, flesh ripped from their bodies by ten thousand hands.

“Equinox!” the nameless billions across the world chanted and screamed, as they looked with awe at the mock-star that stood against all that their monstrous masters had left.

Far beyond the skies above, five hundred Imperial warships faced only one.  

The last guard at the gate fell, a figure standing over their beaten body with the very lance rifle the guard had once wielded. They were of Gangmire creed, in blood the same race as the creature he had just felled, but he looked at the thing underfoot with nothing but hate and disgust. Onwards, the young Gangmire pushed, shaking and limping with each new step. He headed the crowd now, not a leader in any meaningful respect, only as one face in a living flood.

The gates of the palace fell open as they crashed against them. Inside, a wall of beings crammed themselves against the locked doors that lead up to the Baron’s residence. They were fat, dressed in luxurious robes, and clawed at a barrier they knew would not save them one way or the other. The battered figure took one step forward, fists clenching around the weapon he held. One of the creatures before them fell to its knees, whimpering, and begged for its life. It was Gangmire too, its pale purple flesh rippling as it shook. All these snivelling beings were Gangmire by genetic nature.

But for generations they had told those they crushed underfoot a different tale. They were superior, enhanced, better by blood than the masses below them; they had said for enumerable ages. The young figure gave it no mercy. Lance-rifle fire leapt from one decadent Gangmire Elite to the next, melting their flesh away in the blink of an eye, while cutting through the door behind them just as effortlessly. Again, the young figure braved forward. Room after room, floor after floor, each full of the same. None were spared. At last, they reached their true prize.

Inside Baron Barkinire’s room was a very different scene to the gluttonous cowardice of the rest of the tower’s refugees. The being inside stood stalwart, facing his back to the rabid forces that had barged their way into this sanctum, dressed in military finery and gripping a small weapon in one hand - its barrel still smouldering. In the corner, a female Gangmire adorned in beautiful robes lay crumpled, two small figures unmoving in her lap, with a trail of smoke snaking from her forehead. The Baron turned their head, wordlessly congratulating the young figure at the head of the crowd. A small smile crept onto the old Gangmire’s face, straining the folds of fat that formed at the tyrant’s cheeks. In its eyes, a strangely satisfied light burned. Slowly, as though savouring his own victory, the young Gangmire raised the stolen lance-rife, leveling its iron-sight with the object of that whole world’s ire. 

Hexhervailiant:

They were well ahead of schedule. That much was to be expected. Following the Emperor’s defeat the remaining forces of the Gangmire had collapsed into disarray. Battles that should have taken several weeks of back-and-forth jousting had lasted a few days at best, as the remaining Imperial fleets blindly threw themselves at the Equinox’s warships. It was somewhat cathartic, a pleasantly fitting end to this pathetic war, if rather disappointing. Sub-admiral Hexhervailiant Mirath’t had spent the better half of twenty centuries training for advanced warfare against enemies with technological equivalence. They had risen through the ranks of the low-admiralty for their prowess in high-tech combat oriented game-theory and come to take charge of a small force of the Expeditionary Battlefleet’s finest vessels. Their division, the Cobalt Legionnaires, were known Equinox-wide for their prowess. Now here they were, in the far reaches of a dead Empire, fighting pests. In the end, it would all have been worth it, insulting as it seemed. All a part of the greater plan. 

The five hundred specks of light that charged towards their position barely deserved to be called ships, let alone warships. Most of them were repurposed skiffs, troop transports, and hulls torn out of Gangmire museums; only ten of the five hundred even having Transit capabilities. The rest lacked so much as the means to get close enough to fire. Those half decent ten were hanging back, closest to the planet, using the swarms in front of them as screens. Cowards. None of it even mattered one way or the other. Battlefleet Command had confirmed that an all-out uprising was already well underway on the planet’s surface, the Baron’s estate under siege, and all vestiges of meaningful Imperial control over the system already lost. What a waste. 

Hexhervailiant brought a conical vessel held in their hand up to their scaled lips to let a small trickle of the violet fluid within flow over their two rows of teeth. It pooled into the well under their tongue, sweet and slightly peppery, before draining smoothly down their throat. For a second they let the faint bitter aftertaste wash over them, before taking another - deeper - dose. The conical vessel, made of crafted diamond and laced with silver ornaments, held only a third of its original contents. Below the parapets of their post swirled a layered chorus of low voices, gentle laughter, and clattering diamond-ware. Joining it was an ambient orchestra of digital status alerts and whirring machinery, some coming from the panels that swivelled around their own person. The domed chamber was divided into three layers, decorated with sweeping arched flourishes of rose gold, and surrounded by a rotating armillary sphere of mobile screens and displays. On the lowest tier, thirty-odd figures of various creeds meandered from one screen and console to the next, making pleasant conversation, and sipping lazily from countless multicoloured beverages. Refined garments glittered as brilliant silver designs decorated dark azure fabrics, flowing gracefully on the myriad forms of the small crowd below. They carried themselves as no more than guests of some planet-side gala. But they were gods of war. There, near the terminal advising firing solutions, a gentle faced Hycrath smiled with lidded eyes at an unheard joke. A colourful crest of tendrils spilled over their shoulders, sequined decorations glimmering as they moved, while raptorial mid-arms raised to cover their mouth as they laughed. Alyo Dynoth. Until recently, they had seemed the best tactician on the ship - barring perhaps Hexhervailiant themself - and had made a name of themselves in their merciless campaign against a particularly obstinate trifecta of Empires in the outer rim some two centuries past. Those soft hands that raised in overblown amusement bore the blood of billions. It was much the same for each and every one of them down there. War theorists, strategists, and military masterminds milled about mirthfully on that marbled floor. Sipping again, taking only enough to taste, the sub-admiral let their focus shift to the second tier. 

Its occupants were very different. Still well dressed, the denizens of the second rung wore neater, stiffer, uniforms in that same silver and azure design. But they did not make merry like those beneath their watch. Eleven now - though twelve in full - they stood at attention, folded arms clasping onto delicate weaponry; as they monitored rows of displays that swung about on armatures from the railings around them with rapt fascination. They were the ones that had true power. Officers of official stations, on the fast track to captain-hood and admiralty themselves - some more so than others. Hexhervailiant took a final, drawn out, swig of the fluid they held, letting the pleasant flavour soak into their taste buds before swallowing fully.  

The sub-admiral themself stood on the final level, where a private orrery of circular panels careened around them, watching live feeds from each substation beneath them and those of the spotter drones sent ahead of the ship itself. To their left stood a vague approximation of personhood, made of overlapping flourishes of rose gold metal that girdered dark plates in geometric patterns. A pearlescent faceplate lay nestled atop it, a shimmering teardrop that cast soft white light around it. Strange, twisted, claws clicked like clockwork as it idled. A custom drone-vessel, the avatar of their ship’s installed Veil-Mind, that linked remotely to the main computer core. Intermittently, it would warble and chirp as the VM obtained some new status or update. To their right, and very much lower than the towering form of Hexhervailiant, stood an increasingly familiar individual. An auburn downed Vixhaltec, angular ears held level to its horizontally flat and wedge shaped head, who’s grey-irised eyes - wide open and attentive - observed Hexhervailiant sceptically. 

“You requested my presence, sub-admiral Mirath’t?” 

The small figure spoke well, placing cautious emphasis on the pronunciation of each word. Recently they had taken up a curious habit of speaking directly in Scalerite - home world dialect nonetheless - when addressing Hexhervailiant. It was the sub-admiral’s own tongue, and a perfectly respectable effort, but entirely redundant. Their SPIKEs, the neural implants nestled into the brainstem of every denizen of the Equinox from the moment their gestation began, rendered the necessity of linguistic parity void.  

“Indeed, officer Vahr. I saw your suggested firing solution. It deviates significantly from the consensus reached by the rest of your station.” Hexhervailiant’s voice drove each word with cutting authority. The Vixhaltec before them twitched, blinking once, before tensing back to attention. 

“I apologise. I thought I saw an opportunity to improve munition-kill efficiency that the others had overlooked. I-”

“Your model timed the launches and strike-Transits of the seeker-slug barrage independently, to a discordant pattern.” Again, the Scalerite sub-admiral bore down on the small officer, cutting off their explanation, shaking them for just a moment. 

“There was, I thought, a chance to time the strike-Transits of the barrage to the tune of our division’s war anthem. I believed it would be a poetic choice, as this is our last engagement. I apologise, I truly did not expect the suggestion to be seen. If I had known-”  

“Officer Vahr. In wartime it is our official duty to ensure that battles are won as efficiently and effectively as possible.” 

Cutting off the Vixhaltec yet again, Hexhervailiant saw something flash briefly across the officer's face. It could have been easily missed by a purely organic individual, but the sub-admiral’s implants did not let it. Shame. Fear. Anger. Defeat. They did not try to speak, standing at attention while waiting to be dismissed. 

Staring down at the creature below, whose form settled into a calmly defeated posture, Hexhervailiant continued. 

“Your assessment of the improved munition-kill efficiency was correct. Your peers missed over seventy separate optimization opportunities even with the aid of Nostura’s computational units.” They did not change the reproachful tone of their address and continued to look down at the small figure with an unreadable expression.

Confusion spread across the auburn toned officer’s face as they peered up, blinking once slowly, as though unable to process the words it had just heard.

“Official duty is something very important in wartime, officer Vahr. But the war ended before we ever made it into Gangmire territory.” A small, crooked, smile wound its way up the iridescent-blue scales of the Scalerite warlord’s face.  

“I have submitted your firing solution to the Nostura Abbadar’s supercomputer core. All that is left is to give the order.” 

The dishevelled Vixhaltec combat tactics officer just stared. 

Moling:

Seven weeks ago Moling Vahr had been assigned to the warship Nostura Abbadar. It had come as the second largest shock in their life. The ship was revered among the division in which the Vixhaltec flew while it's commander was feared like death itself. That Moling had even found themselves within the Cobalt Legionnaires they could barely believe, let alone serving on the legendary flagship itself. Being fast tracked straight from an academy apprenticeship to active service when the war broke out, while in the grand scheme of things so laughably young - not yet having lived through their first century - was clearly wrong. To be suddenly surrounded by peers who were each thousands of years older and their better in every conceivable way left Moling reeling. Every new day felt like it was sure to be the last. They would mess up, make a mistake, do something to embarrass themselves in front of this pantheon of living gods of warfare; and then it would be over. They would be transferred down and whatever clerical error had put them here would be found out. Soon thereafter their whole family back home would know them for what they really were: an upstart opportunist who took advantage of a terrible war for their own gain. But, instead, each day seemed to take them higher. They had started as nothing more than a low-grade aide to the combat solutions department. A shadow to the shadows of the servants under the gods that stalked above.  Just two weeks later they were delivering solution parameters directly to the ship's main computer core, serving feedstock to the impossible calculations of the Nostura Abbadar’s enormous superintelligence. Not a monumental responsibility in itself, but it took them from their hidden depths of the ship to the command-rooms for the first time. The twists and turns of the weeks thereafter grew ever blurrier and more impossible to believe. A position as secretary to the CIC’s combat solutions expert, that placed them on the very same marble floor as all those gilded deities of death, passed before they could start to process it. 

Next thing they knew, they were standing on the second tier. Looking down on them, on those immortal masterminds whose whims alone had fated whole worlds to obliteration. Standing side by side with the silent officers who funnelled real commands into the ships systems, for battle after battle. Advised by people thousands of years older than Moling while commanding the guns of the flagship itself. 

It was all like a bizarre fever-dream, somehow being everything Moling had ever wanted and everything they feared the most, which left them stumbling in a daze as dread loomed ever closer. 

It was then that Moling had seen them in person for the first time. Hexhervailiant Mirath’t, the Cobalt Butcher. A towering presence, always watching from the ramparts of their command tower at the room’s centre, far larger than life. A statue carved interpretively from blue stone, the picture of military grandeur, draped in cloth worn more like armour than a uniform. Jagged silver decals traced geometric designs down blue-black fabric. Neatly arranged medallions decorated a chrome sash that hung in a sharp line across the Scalerite’s broad chest. A plated metal headdress fanned over the back of their head. All the while, powerful muscles lurked under thick, iridescent, skin; barely enough to betray the living nature of the being that bore them. And those emerald eyes, cold and calculating, which promised merciless obliteration to any they fell upon. Their first encounter was a perfectly routine thing. A few stray shots came a little too close in one of their latest genuine confrontations; after which the sub-admiral wanted to know what went wrong. The whole officer complement had been summoned to explain their actions, Moling Vahr included. Then it was more. Sometimes Hexhervailiant would come down to their tier, with that horrific custom drone behind them, and watch, coldly evaluating all at their stations. When one of the other officers in navigation got demoted, for a string of underperformances, it had seemed obvious that the same fate was coming their way. But it didn’t. Instead, when the sub-admiral caught them making a small improvement to a combat sim sent in from some famous Hycrath strategist among the immortals below, there was no punishment. For the briefest instant something akin to an actual emotion - other than disappointment - swept over the Scalerite’s face. Anger, surely. It was hard to tell, but it could be nothing else. From that point on the agent of annihilation started paying more attention to Vahr, watching closer and judging more meticulously, as if searching for just one reason that they shouldn’t be here. If the sub-admiral had only thought to ask them directly Moling could have, and would have, given them twenty. And now here they were. Five hundred Gangmire scrap buckets bearing down on them - hours out of engagement range for the Imperials but well within their own. Hexhervailiant had summoned them solely, for the first time ever, right up there to the top. Side by side with the commander of the third most famous division of the Expeditionary Battlefleet, in the last fight of the biggest war in Equinox history. 

It was brutal. They had submitted that firing solution as one of seven options, the other six being the result of consensus from the four others assigned to combat tactics, and flagged it as ‘tactically inoperable’ to ensure the computer would disregard it. But, somehow, Hexhervailiant had seen it. Moling had submitted it for their own entertainment, bored with the cold utility of the others around them. Now they were being grilled on its ridiculous nature without remorse. “Officer Vahr. In wartime it is our official duty to ensure that battles are won as efficiently and effectively as possible.” This is it. This is the end. The sub-admiral found their one reason. 

Emotions flooded through them. Shame. Fear. Anger. Defeat. They did not try to speak, standing at attention while waiting to be dismissed. Strangely, they felt the calmest they had since leaving the academy. And then the towering admiral spoke again.

“Your assessment of the improved munition-kill efficiency was correct. Your peers missed over seventy separate optimization opportunities even with the aid of Nostura's computational units.” Something was wrong. The words Moling’s SPIKE was delivering to their brain must have been erroneous, or their ears - which had started to sag - must have misheard what the Scalerite had said. Officer Vahr blinked, suddenly dizzy as the response they expected did not come.  

“Official duty is something very important in wartime, officer Vahr. But the war ended before we ever made it into Gangmire territory.” A small, crooked, smile wound its way up the iridescent-blue scales of the Scalerite warlord’s face. 

“I have submitted your firing solution to the Nostura Abbadar’s supercomputer core. All that is left is to give the order.” 

Moling Vahr, the dishevelled Vixhaltec combat tactics officer, felt their breath hitch in their throat as they could do nothing but stare. Their arrowhead jaws fell slack by just the slightest degree, slit pupils of their grey eyes shrinking to slivers, before opening and closing their mouth with a slight gasp. Silently, Hexhervailiant waited. Fighting back a stutter, they began to speak..  

“I do not know what to say. Thank-”  

“Fire.” 

“What?” 

“Your firing solution is queued in the combat computer. All that remains is to give the order, officer Vahr. What you are to say is ‘Fire’.” The Scalerite’s smile remained unchanged, as they took a single half step to the left. The command console was there, a step or two forward, all Moling Vahr had to do was put one foot in front of the other and speak that single word. Somehow, the small distance felt so terribly far away and their throat so impossibly narrow. A vast chasm that widened and widened in front of their eyes as the command terminal pulled away from them. The rose gold embellishments of the panels around them began to swirl and morph, becoming a forest of tangled brambles blocking away the path, while the warbling of the drone to the left distorted into the echoing wails of ravenous beats, hidden in the vines. Somewhere, a heartbeat thundered, someone’s eyes twitched, and breaths came in staggered rasps. Everything was falling, burning, so far away. And then it wasn’t. Moling’s ears leapt a little higher than their normal, horizontal, orientation. Their heartbeat, breathing, and twitching levelled off as quickly as they had spiralled; all while something heavy and cold weighed down on their shoulder. Moling’s eyes darted left, finding the impossible sight of the sub-admirals talon tipped hand firmly clutching their shoulder. Those same eyes flitted up, finding Hexhervailiant’s cold gaze replaced with an unfamiliar expression. 

Scalerite faces were notoriously hard to read - with or without SPIKE assistance - even among relatively similar races. Atop their skulls stiff head-crests and blunt nasal ridges restricted movement of micro muscles over most of their heads into a fairly narrow range of orientations. The forward facing eyes, broad ovals with horizontal slits, of their creed did not visibly refocus as often as most other beings, making it hard to even know where they were looking. Their wide and thin lipped mouths hid two rows of teeth; capable only of weak smiles or frail frowns. 

All combined the motions of their facial structures were often minute and strained, nearly impossible to discern meaning from, even between one another. The foundation of their own intraspecific emotional communication, instead, were the vibrant chromatophores that gave their scales a colour shifting effect. The Scalerite, then, were species for whom emotion was a kaleidoscope pattern of colours written upon the tapestry of their scales. Hard to read for most, but with a deep enough understanding of their kind it had a depth like few others. Hexhervailiant Mirath’t, however, lacked even that. What had happened to them was a public mystery, around which ten thousand rumours had been invented, but its effects were not. The scales that covered their body, perhaps once as hypnotically warping in colour and composition as any other Scalerite, now only displayed one hue. An iridescent blue, like raw cobalt ore, interspersed by veins of blackened tissue. It did not shift, or change, in any way. For as long as they had been a public figure it had been a signature feature of their presence; that left them all but impossible to read. Was that slight upwards tilt of their mouth one of satisfaction? How their heavy brows clenched just a little bit, was that regret, or fury? The way their eyes widened by just the slightest degree; was it fear? Their all-but monochrome skin made them emotionally mute - as terrible a mutilation for one of their kind as to rip away the face itself of any other being. As Hexhervailiant stood there, looking down at Moling with one hand held firmly on their small shoulder, the Vixhaltec officer could not begin to imagine what the sub-admiral’s expression might mean. They hoped, nonetheless, for it to be one of concern. Perhaps sympathy. It would be a pleasant thing to imagine. 

They took a step forward. Then another. The thirty or so crew spread across the two lower levels of the command centre paused in their discussions as the VM pinged their SPIKEs to attention, causing eyes of all kinds and colours to drill into them as they stood where Hexhervailiant so often did. Sure enough, their firing solution was plainly displayed on the translucent panels before them. 

“Firing solution loaded, verified, and calibrated. Navigational scheme integrated successfully. All relevant weapons are primed and ready to fire on command.” The VM’s artificial voice streamed into their minds, awaiting that one final word. The choking feeling in Moling’s throat dissolved, as their mouth opened to speak.  

“Fire.” The word felt foreign, crawling out of Moling’s mouth in a way that made the downy fur of their back stand on end under their uniform.  

“Affirmative, Com-Tac officer Moling Vahr. Executing firing solution.” The pearlescent faceplate of the drone to their left lit up with each word, synthetically melodic, as the ship’s VM obeyed their order. Deep beneath them, the hull began to shudder. It was all but imperceptible, a phantom shiver that quaked weakly through the vast depths of machinery beneath them.  

Outside, arranged in racks that lay along its spine, powerful mass drivers accelerated bullets large enough to be ships in their own right to ludicrous speeds. Their targets were almost twice as far away as either of the enemy world’s moons were from its surface, far too distant to hit with ordinary projectiles, and would not get close enough to even consider turret fire for multiple standard days.  

By then, the battle would be long over. On screen the seeker slugs careened away from the ship. Ninety-six bullets to kill five hundred vessels. The next best solution would have used one hundred and six. Ninety of them activated their own torch-drives to obtain maximum momentum, while six ran cold. As the last still firing emptied its fuel tanks, the seeker slugs prepared to prove exactly why the Equinox had won this war. One by one, they blinked away. Each shell had a built in Transit core - their culture’s esoteric faster-than-light engines - programmed to spit the deadly weapons out right on top of the enemy. As the seeker slugs began Transit, the VM set the Cobalt Legionnaires’ deceptively comforting anthem to play in tune with the carnage on screen. Deep, orchestral, and enchanting. With each powerful note a new star blossomed in the dark, as the concentrated antimatter contained within each pellet contacted their targets. Such incomprehensible sums of energy were released on each hit that everything around them unravelled down to the quark level. Five hundred warships soon became ten, while six slugs had still yet to activate Transit. Those six had been fired quietly, dumping their heatsinks and leaving their fuel unburnt, to trick the enemy into thinking themselves lucky - and safe. Sure enough, they took the bait. The instant the last unhidden warhead blossomed, the Nostura Abbadar activated its own Transit, safely popping into real-space far from where it had been. Five of the ten enemy warships appeared in its place, only to find themselves unravelled as two of the remaining slugs exploded on top of them - spawning a pair of stillborn stars where they hung. For a few minutes, the remaining five jousted desperately with them. Unknowingly dancing to the marching tune of their own enemy, as they were baited into one trap after the other. The final note played - long, glorious, and harmonic - in synchrony with the death of the last Gangmire warship. Only afterimages of their dying starbursts remained, and the Nostura Abbadar. A vast and gilded thing. Sweeping rose gold buttresses braced embellished radiators, gilded girders secured ravenous mass drivers, radial plates of scintillating ebon armour all but vanishing into the great darkness of those cold outer heavens were it not for the brilliant chrome that rimmed each one. A mass of golden ribbons and harsh geometric tombstones, illuminated by the occasional flares of its powerful torch drives; the Nostura Abbadar hung above Barkinire’s World alone. It could have come with a thousand warships of its very same ilk at its side. But it never needed to. 

The battle was over. The war was won. When the order to fire had been given the whole room fell silent - save for the orchestral anthem playing overhead. They watched the battle unfold, powerless for all their might. The ship’s VM handled the matters of live combat. It thought a billion times as fast as they could even with cybernetic machine intelligence at their disposal; of course it took charge in battle. But it was done. At first, the room stayed silent, even after the final note of their anthem played. And then someone clapped. Shortly after, another joined. Soon the applause became a melody of its own, as all in the room cheered their victory on. New music played - gentle symphonies, not their war song - as fresh rounds of diamond-ware drinks were passed around, ferried from one gaggle of immortals to the next by elegant drones. On the third tier, Hexhervailiant once more placed a hand on Moling’s shoulder, looking down at them with a softer smile - weak and unreadable as it was.  

“Your solution worked with outstanding success.” The Scalerite’s voice cut as harshly as ever, although it was uttered more quietly than usual. 

“Sub-admiral Mirath’t, thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate you saying that. I never imagined I would get this far. I hope to serve as your officer for some time yet, even if the war is done.” 

Only one without eyes, ears, or senses of any kind could mistake the expression on Moling Vahr’s face. The sharp ears that sat at either side of their horizontally flat head were held noticeably higher than the level of their slick auburn down-covered scalp, their wide eyes alight, while a soft smile stretched across their mouth. 

“Surveillance of planet-side activity indicates the revolt has been successful. The Baron’s defences have been breached. Assorted rebel agents have offered their unconditional surrender.” Warbled the machine to their left artificially, its faceplate glowing, as the VM thought-spoke to them through their SPIKEs. 

The sub-admiral waved a hand, passing private thought-speak of their own to the drone, before looking back down to the small Vixhaltec beside them. 

“You have talent, promise, and resolve, far exceeding that of your peers.” They paused, their smile breaking into a grin - something Moling thought impossible - before continuing. Their next words left the figure below them reeling once more; disbelief still blooming in Moling’s silver eyes.

“You will make a fine addition to the admiralty, assistant-admiral Moling Vahr, congratulations.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: Paradise  

Lepin:

It was difficult for a quadruped like Lepin to move through the crowded markets. When half one’s body was behind them, and not below, it was challenging to avoid either getting trampled or trampling someone else. Today was no different. The benefit of being a quadruped, however, was that people tended to be especially cautious of getting in one’s way. For the most part, therefore, it resulted in the surrounding crowds parting like waves before the bow of a sea-ship as Lepin made their way through the district streets. They had been here countless times, usually alone, and could navigate the labyrinth of stalls, entertainment complexes, and storefronts effortlessly no matter how densely packed they were. Spotting the familiar landmark of a shiny, neon lit, dining parlour; they turned away from the centre of the path. The All’s Well, their friend group’s historic gathering place. But it was not their destination, not today. Just a sign they were going in the right direction. Crossing to the opposite side of the busy street, they sidled along the edge until they reached a narrow passageway - no more than an alley - down which Lepin slid. Officially, being just an access lane technicians and drones used to repair faults to various systems that supplied the nearby buildings, it was a dead end. Unofficially, there was a patch of armour plating that rang hollow when lightly knocked on, behind which a sensitive pair of ears hid in waiting. Pausing, stealing a glance over their shoulder, the Kyral checked to ensure they were alone. Once satisfied of their discretion, they rapped twice on the unassuming panel. Beside them, an almost imperceptible - and definitely not legally endorsed - camera focused on their face. Not a moment later, the panel slipped open to reveal a dark tunnel of wires and polymer mesh just wide enough to duck into. The panel closed behind them as quickly as it had opened, leaving the quadruped to slink through the modified duct in the dark, guided only by the faint light at its end. 

The room within, if you could call it that, was a mess. Bundles of cables and machinery filled it like a nest; scattered chaotically here and there. Dim light filtered down from stolen bulbs strung up above. At the room's centre stood a tall sandy coloured figure, wrapped in dull grey overalls pockmarked with equipment clips and discoloured patches where repairs had been made. Their arms were crossed as they stared Lepin down.

“You were supposed to be here hours ago. One of these days I’m not going to wait.” The indignant Vixhaltec before them scowled, their wedge of a face scrunched into furious furrows, as they watched Lepin drag themself into the room. 

“Relax, Ting, you sprung this on me last minute. I have obligations, you know.” Lepin’s voice carried with a faint echo, bouncing against the blunt metal walls around the two figures. 

“I will give you that, but it's important. Really important.” The sand-downed biped’s scowl softened only slightly, ragged ears twitching slightly in their downward position, as they glared. 

“Well, what’s the deal, then? I have plans that won’t make themselves.” Lepin leant against the wall, eyeing their companion dismissively.  

“Right. I think your plans to go gallivanting off into Founders-know-where can wait. It's about that request we got last week. They came back with a tripled offer. It was good already, now it's massive.” They fidgeted as they spoke, kicking slightly at some of the discarded junk that littered the ground of their clandestine den, while further loosening their face. Lepin sighed, bringing one of their hands up to rub the side of their horns.  

“I told you, I’m not doing that deal. This could be my ticket off-world, if it's what I think it is. Maybe even enough to get Arimy and me into an Equinox programme.” 

“It could be both our tickets off this rock - your buddy’s too - if we just give these people what they want. Seriously, it's enough merit-score to get all of us a charter straight to the core if we wanted.” The Vixhaltec before them was all but growling, their sharp needles of teeth bared, as they carried on. 

“What is so different about this one thing compared to everything else we’ve done?” They paused, almost shaking, as they waited for Lepin’s explanation. 

“Everything, Koting. Arimy would never just up and leave, not if I can’t find a way for them to help their progenitor here. The sudden extra merit-score could get picked up by the authorities and we might get blacklisted. A random charter would just leave us stranded without anywhere to go. All that and we’d still just be Con-Cits with no way up the ladder. If I can find this thing, claim it, and work with the local Exotech research branch it could land me a place up there legitimately.” 

“But what about me! Those programmes would never take us both. You know that!” 

“No, I do not . And you don't know that either, Ting. Not if this is as big as I think it is.” 

“Please, just… think about it some more. Before you hand it over to Colony Command.” 

Koting’s whole stance had changed. Their ears were all but completely down, sagging instead of taut, their scowl evaporated, and dark eyes refusing to meet Lepin’s own. 

“I promise. It could all be a bust anyway, the last thing we need is to promise a crazy black-market collector something we can’t deliver.” Stepping forward, Lepin offered a hand to their gangly partner-in-petty-crime. “Deal, Ting?” 

The other hesitated, their hand going out only to be snatched back. 

“There’s more to it. I, well, I’m worried.” Their frown intensified, still not looking at Lepin. 

“I told you, it doesn't-” 

“They are getting really intense about it. Pinged my SPIKE, like, fifty times in a row this morning. Making it out like this was the last chance to make the deal. I tried tracing the pings, but it's just a bunch of fronts, I couldn't find any real contacts attached to them. I don’t think this is just some collector.” Worry flooded their angular face, their figure shrinking down despite still being drastically taller than the quadruped they stood with. 

“All the more reason not to take it. You made me agree that we wouldn’t do anything risky yourself. This whole deal sounds like the definition of risky.” 

They both wavered just a brief moment, before clasping hands, while sharing sympathetic glances. 

“Just, please, be safe...” sighed the Vixhaltec before them.

After a pause, Koting screwed their face back into a wrathful scowl, and continued. 

“Seriously, if you mess this up and get in trouble I’ll have to find some other idiot to work with.”

“Like you could replace me!” Lepin’s sly smile crept back, pulling at the edges of their eyes.

“Oh really? Hotshot wannabe pilots tend to be pretty easy to find on backwater worlds like ours.” their companion teased… mostly. 

The Vixhaltec shooed them back into the tunnel, turning again to the shelves of trinkets, tools, and machinery around them, while Lepin prepared to brave the torrents of the crowds outside. The panel closed behind them with a sigh, Koting’s hidden camera tracking them as the Kyral slunk back out of the alley. As they did, a concealed drone that clung to the piping above, which had been watching their little operation for the last two weeks, pinged a copy of all that it had seen and heard to a distant receiver.

Arimy:

Home. Even as it was, it was still home. The silent halls, barren rooms, and empty courtyard were all just as they had always been. In the past, it was never something Arimy dwelled on all that much. But that was before it became clear that it would never be full again. But at least it would soon be a little less empty than usual. Kantov was coming home. It had been a very long time since they had seen their sibling. Kantov had never gotten along very well with either of the progenitors they shared, having left just after Arimy turned twelve. As soon as they were old enough, Kantov had joined the expeditionary battlefleet. Almost as far as possible from the family courier business. It had kept them occupied constantly ever since, and - in a wicked twist of fate - alive. It was a blessing straight from the Founders that they had been given some leave now that the war was over. With progenitor Vikoy and the twins gone, Arimy and progenitor Tiomi needed them back. The business was over, there would be no saving it, but even just their presence might make things better. Tiomi was not handling the tragedy well. They had every right to grieve, and Arimy was hardly doing much better, but things were spiralling out of control. Hope that things could improve still lingered, that perhaps the others’ SPIKE files could be recovered, but it had been almost a full year since their ship got attacked. Hope couldn’t bring back the dead. Glancing again at the courtyard, the mild pink foliage of the tree still vibrant at the centre, they pinged their progenitors SPIKE to see where they were. The reply was quick, they were in the pod bay, clearing out junk. Arimy lifted themself from the seat they had briefly rested their legs on, swiftly making their way out of the courtyard. Passing through the echoing halls, they let their hands trace over the various family items that decorated the otherwise sparse residence - leaving clean trails in the dust that coated them - as they strained to attach a memory to each one. But something chained the memories back, leaving nothing but a dullened absence where they should have been found.

The pod bay was the only room on the lowest of three floors; taken up almost entirely by the berths for their two personal transport pods - one a large six seater, with a decent freight loader, while the other was a small, nippy, two person pod. They had long been using the space as storage for extra equipment for their ship, owing to the large hanger-style gate taking up most of one wall, which they now had no use for. Before, random pieces had lain scattered haphazardly wherever they could fit, a minefield of machine parts and tools, in the well loved space. Now only a few organised crates remained, waiting to be taken to the recycler plant. Their remaining progenitor was there, supervising their loader drone in preparing the now useless items for another trip to the plant. The blocky machine towered over Tiomi, dwarfing their small figure completely, as it mechanically carried crates and tanks into the larger of the two transport pods. Without even turning, Tiomi’s voice carried across the bay. 

“The loading is almost done, dear. I was thinking we might see about renovating this space for another berth, in case Kantov needs a pod of their own…” Their voice was soft and comforting; but was underlaid by a quivering trace of distress that seeped into each spoken word. It was an undertone that had become hauntingly familiar. “What do you think?”

“It could be good. I remember they used to talk about wanting one.” 

“Oh yes, how could I forget. They used to drive Vic and I up the walls with how much they went on about it.” Tiomi still stood with their back to Arimy, watching the drone with their hands at their hips. 

“Yeah, there was one I still remember them showing me. It was all red and smooth looking, a racing pod or something I think.” A melancholic smile wound up their face as they spoke, unnoticed by either in the room. 

“Oh Founders, yes. It was so garish! Would have cost more Merit Score than the whole ship, absolutely ridiculous. But Kantov did seem to love it a lot. Maybe we could find one to get them if they do decide to stay.” A noticeable hitched breath followed, one of Tiomi’s hands reaching up to wipe something unseen out of their eyes. Silence hung in the air, stewing apprehensively as the two struggled to think. It had become a vicious guest, a parasite that ate away a little more every day, filling their once happy home invisibly. 

“Do you think they’ll stay, dear?” The words trembled on their progenitor’s tongue, their softness slicing through the wretched quiet between them like knives. Try as they may, Arimy could find no words to give in turn. All they let out was a suppressed sniffle, and a mumbled assertion of hope. 

“I am so sorry, my dear; I promise we’ll get through this. Founders, do I know it's hard. But we will survive. Whether Kantov stays or not.” At last, Tiomi turned to face their progeny. Tears stained their face, welling up at the corners of their brown eyes, leaving red marks searing down their pale skin. But a smile graced their lips, warmly offering much needed support to both of them. The two humanoid figures embraced, wordlessly consoling one another, even as the machine continued to robotically labour behind them. They were the same species, Homotypes in their case, as progeny and progenitor conventionally were. Mid-sized bipeds, with two arms, that were covered in a thin skin disrupted only by sparse and often invisible hairs. Said hairs became denser in certain areas over others, most notably the head, and grew peculiarly long there. Their relatively flat faces bore a pronounced nose at the centre - flanked by one pair of eyes - and a skin covered mouth that opened only at a fairly small point below their nose. They eventually parted their embrace, turning to help the ungainly machine finish stacking the last remaining odds and ends into the larger transport pod, with spirits held just a little higher than before. Once it was done, they made to enter the pod - having powered down the loader drone - only to be interrupted as Arimy received a ping through their SPIKE.  

“Who is it, dear?” their progenitor asked with a comforting smile. 

“It's Syeal, they’re outside.”  

“Oh! Well, I don’t recommend that you leave your partner waiting.” 

“It's fine, they will understand. We have to, you know, get this load to the recycler before we lose our booking.” Sighing, Arimy prepared a thought-speak to send to their waiting visitor above. 

“Nonsense. I can handle it myself. We both know you hate flying in these things anyway.” 

Tiomi gave their progeny a dismissive wave, shooing them up the stairs to let their unexpected guest in. Before the younger figure could argue, Tiomi slipped into the idling transport and initiated its undocking sequence; leaving Arimy standing at the bottom of the steps as they watched the utilitarian vehicle sluggishly crawl through the gate. With a low whine of its EM-sails, it powered into the designated airways outside. As much as it stung to not be able to be there for their progenitor, they could hardly help but feel warmth fill their chest as they sent a ping of their own to the person waiting at the door upstairs. 

Lepin:

The walk to Lepin’s home was fairly short, not being far from the market in which they spent so much of their time, as they unconsciously went by habitual autopilot. Thoughts swirled in their head, a terrible concoction brewing in the storm that clouded their mind. Koting had been a close friend for almost as long as Arimy, if a different kind of friend indeed, and was usually right on matters concerning their shared endeavours in petty crime. In truth, Lepin hadn’t even thought about how little their plan included them - having been so caught up in their own little world of stress and wonder - and it left a familiar kernel of guilt festering deep in their throat. Somehow, it just seemed such an obvious way forward. What they had found was big. They were sure of it. 

Three weeks back was when it had started. They had been off ‘gallivanting’ - as Koting put it - on their own to clear their mind. It had taken almost two whole days to hike out as far as they did; just letting their thoughts wander and freeing their legs to carry them wherever fate might take them. It was something they did often, ever since they had been old enough to go out unsupervised. They had never imagined they would stumble on anything actually important out there. That fateful day seemed no different, at first, as they had lain under the scarlet tree-cover to catch their breath. The warm sun casting glittering rays of gold and red down upon them from the gaps in the canopy above. Gentle winds had caressed them as they half-dozed, making the red reeds around them sway and dance in choreographed synchrony. They had tried to tune into the orbital SPIKE arrays, to stream some music while they ate their packed rations, when they noticed the first sign of the mystery onto which they’d stumbled. Try as they might, no reception would come. When they checked their SPIKE’s status, it showed full connection. But everything coming down from the orbiters was corrupted beyond recognition. Later, they would confirm it went the other way. All their SPIKE backups, which streamed automatically to the colony servers every few hours, had been corrupted. It was a rather mortifying realisation, really. Had something happened before they got back into proper reception it would have been the end. No way to call for help, no backups, just death. Real, permanent, death; no redistillation if they died out there.  

Anyone else might have taken that as a sign to leave well enough alone, but for Lepin the danger only made it all the more tempting. Especially after they looked through the public records of that area’s geological survey results. They were completely normal. There was no sign of any mineral deposits that could explain the connection issues. No unique flora or fauna. Not even any lava tubes or low density pockets that could suggest something anomalous. But there was definitely something wrong with it. So Lepin went back, with more equipment this time, to see if they could find anything that stood out. It took two more trips to find what they didn’t know they were looking for. A cave, freshly opened, which didn’t show up on the geological data, leading to a deep sinkhole that went so far down they could not see the bottom. It should not have been there, the handheld scanning devices they brought along with them indicating the opening didn’t exist, and yet there it was. Stranger still was the signal. Only even perceptible from the mouth of the cave, manifested as distortions to the feed beaming down from colonial satellites in orbit, came a repeating pulse of information. Their SPIKE utterly failed to make sense of it; and none of the devices they tried using had managed any better. Somehow, Lepin felt as though they could feel it calling them. A voice scratching in the back of their skull, making the bases of their horns itch, beckoning them into the darkness. Every moment they spent standing on the precipice seemed to last an eternity - waves of nauseating sensation crawling over their body the longer they looked down - until they finally gave in. 

They did not just jump. Generally speaking, Lepin would have liked to argue they were not a complete idiot. Definitely a partial idiot, on which both Koting and Arimy would agree even without having ever met one another, but not a complete one. So, instead, they had repelled down. It took three separate attempts, their third requiring a whole trip back home to get a greater length of cable, but eventually they reached the bottom. And what awaited them was otherworldly. Literally. They had seen relics like this before, as images and videos on the Trans-Net, but had never even dreamed of seeing one in person; let alone finding one themself. An Archivist structure for sure. It had all the signature markings of the mysterious fallen civilization’s creations. The grey-black material of which it was made, neither stone nor metal, felt almost warm to the touch - pulsing with an ominously living heartbeat. It's perfectly smooth surface had no sign of seams, mechanical structures, or entry. Standing on it, at the bottom of the sinkhole, Lepin had felt the voice all but screaming into their head. Begging, demanding, needing them to come closer. They had felt sick, almost passing out there and then, and had no choice but to go back up after just a few minutes. The most exciting thing by far was that, so far as Lepin knew, no active Archivist device or structure had ever been found; all having been found inert and lifeless. This, whatever it was, was most definitely alive. 

If Lepin could stake a claim to the area, alongside a few more knowledgeable collaborators from the colony’s volunteer science teams, and recover whatever lay buried here it could change everything for them. It could be a straight shot off this world, without having to worry about the tedious tribulations of begging for charter on random starships like Koting and them had planned before, if they could get the right endorsement. Those techno-zealots from the core, the High Church of Technocracy or whatever they called themselves, would be foaming at their mouths for something like this; Founders knew what they might be willing to give Lepin for it. Definitely more than the shady buyer Koting was getting harassed by. Probably. Most of all, it could help Arimy too. After everything they had lost, this could save them, it could give what was left of their family a fighting chance. But, where was Koting’s place in that? They’d been so close for so long, even if it was just - shady - business. Even if, maybe, it would be nice to think they were more. But they were right. There wouldn’t be much chance for them to benefit from a research project. They didn’t even have an official residence - let alone any legitimate means by which to apply for apprenticeships - and would be laughed off in a heartbeat by any serious research team. It was a painful reality check; but the brooding quadruped was drawing blanks on what to do. Arimy needed their help, surely, but so did Koting. Or did they? They were always very standoffish with Lepin, for as long as they’d known one another, and seemed perpetually perturbed just by the Kyral’s presence. Solemnly, Lepin told themself that the Vixhaltec would be fine without them; that they could just find another plucky idiot to work with. Like they had said themself, good-for-nothing hotshots were a common sight on Callis Corrian. A snapshot flash of the sun-down the two had met, however, left them unsure. 

Standing at the door to their own home, hand on the lock mechanism, a ping through their SPIKE shook the preoccupied quadruped out of their reminiscing. It was from Syeal, Arimy’s literally star-crossed partner straight from the core, and had a few other familiar SPIKE IDs attached. Looks like they were springing a little celebratory outing to preempt Kantov’s arrival, to which the whole group was invited, as a last minute thing. Not unanticipated, really, given the saccharine Enkanth’s tendency to spontaneity. Smiling, Lepin pinged an acceptance, before heading into their home to get ready. There was something they needed to ask Arimy about too; with this being as good a time as any. 

Arimy:

There was something utterly infectious about Syeal’s endlessly high spirits; that banished all Arimy’s doubts and fears to the depths of their consciousness. They’d met six years ago, when Arimy’s family - Kantov not included - briefly travelled to the Core for an important business trip. By a stroke of sheer chance, and utter improbability, they’d crossed paths with the energetic young Enkanth on the gorgeous resort world where both of each other’s progenitors had dealings. What inspired the confident stranger to take interest in Arimy defied any explanation. For the duration of the trip the two kept one another company in the absence of the closer friends each had been forced to leave at home; showing each-other sides of life they never knew of. Syeal was, to put it lightly, quite a few ranks higher on the social ladder than them; while in turn Arimy was the first person the Enkanth had ever been allowed to meet from beyond the opulent Core. The stories they shared illuminated parts of existence neither had ever imagined; igniting newfound curiosity in both their hearts. Before parting ways, with their short stays having come to a mutual end, they had exchanged SPIKE IDs to keep in touch. At the time, when Syeal had said they hoped to see them again soon, Arimy had reciprocated the other’s determined sentiment with hollow words. That the universe would align to collide their disparate worlds once again seemed impossible to believe. In thinking that, however, they had failed to truly understand the other’s agenda. Not half a year later, without warning, the Enkanth pinged their SPIKE to tell them they would be arriving at Calis Corrian star-port the next week. 

By the end of the year the two had started treating their relationship as something a little beyond just friends. Now, they sat opposite each other on the furniture of Arimy’s home as they recounted the tales of their respective day's work; each somehow rapt to the words of their partner with little regard to what either was really saying. 

Just as Syeal began an especially dramatic retelling of an incident at the star-port, where a huge Scalerite visitor had started arguing violently with a massive Olioth, they suddenly paused. In a flash, their four red eyes widened as the bright blue feather-like bristles crowning their head stood on end. 

“Are you, well, are you alright?” Arimy leant forwards slightly, stuttering slightly as they spoke. 

“Oh, yes. Sorry. Just remembered. Last minute thing, about you actually.” Syeal’s stammered out in rapid, high pitched, sentences. 

“About me?” 

“Yes, we know your sibling will be here soon. So, the others and I had an idea. Little get-together, to celebrate. Athal and Rynn suggested the All’s Well - like always. What do you think?” When they had first met Syeal, Arimy had struggled to make out the nuances of Enkanth expressions. They had learned by now, however, that the squinted secondary eyes and rapidly shuffling feathers that hung down the sides of their head were their creed’s equivalent of a beaming, excited, smile. They would have known anyway, as the two always let each other’s SPIKE feeds intertwine and pair when together, allowing each one’s emotions to bleed into the cybernetic psyche of the other. 

“That sounds like a great idea. Honestly, I need a distraction from thinking about what might happen, when were you thinking of going?” Reaching out, Arimy gently held onto one of Syeal’s four pointed talons. 

“Around now. Oh! I’ll ping the others. Then we can head out!” The Enkanth leapt up, dragging the humanoid whose hand they were clutching along with them, as they streamed the details to their small group of friends. The two were out the door and racing towards the nearest transit station before Arimy had a chance to register what had happened. It didn’t matter, though, as the smile plastered onto their face only grew as they went. 

The All’s Well was a very unusual place, if familiar to the band of five that huddled in energetic conversation at one of the back booths. The proprietor, Allteki - or just ‘All’, was an ancient Kaskith - a long, coiling, species with a segmented exoskeleton that walked on a single pair of long, armoured, legs while using a tangling array of claws and feelers as arms. They had arrived with the original First Wave colonists, over three hundred years ago, and had set up what would go on to become the All’s Well before the true colony ship ever arrived. Why the old, twirling, insectoid went for garish neon lights and pastel decor no one knew. But it gave the establishment a unique personality, sticking out like the world’s most sore thumb among the colony’s rugged market district. To them, it was where the five always met when nobody wanted to deal with new things. They sat in their routine spot near the back of the dining area, each wildly different in form and formality, hidden from prying eyes but with a clear shot to both the counter and the often barren dance floor that dominated the far end of the room. Syeal, a blue and white feathered Enkanth, leaned forward passionately as they poured their mind out to Arimy; the brunette humanoid sitting opposite them. Beside them sat a tall Archapital, the lanky armoured plates of its body draped in fluffy dress robes, deep in a one sided conversation with Lepin before them. To the opposite side of Syeal was the brooding form of a Jotur, it's long and narrow head hung low as it watched the others, listening with greater attention than it preferred to display. 

“- and then, wham! The security drone slammed that big Scalerite against the ground so hard I could feel it shake all the way from the other side of the lobby!” The tale, already half known by Arimy, had been retold even more dramatically than the first time, much to the begrudging amusement of the unsuccessfully aloof figure beside them. 

“Those things scare me, like, what happens if one of them malfunctions? The loader drone we have can lift things twice its weight with ease and it's just a toy compared to those security units.” Sipping from the vessel in their hands, Arimy shook their head after speaking. 

“I know! It's crazy! This one time, I saw one-” 

“Bombs.” 

Together, Syeal and Arimy snapped their focus to the Jotur, sputtering in synchrony with the same question. “What?” 

“It's how they stop them from malfunctioning. Little bombs in their computer cores. If anything goes wrong, the bomb gets popped remotely. And then the drone just stands there, dead-still.” Rynn’s coarse, husky, voice uttered quietly, just loud enough for the two others to hear them. 

“Woah! Really? How do you know?” Syeal leant forwards, their toothy four-part jaw almost in the Jotur’s face as they screeched their question. 

“Had one go bad back before I met you. Something went wrong with its SI, and it tried to rip open the airlock. So, the captain just pinged the bomb with their SPIKE. There was a pop, some smoke, and then it just stopped, like a statue.” Rynn nursed their own drink as they spoke, keeping their eyes trained on the liquid beneath them. 

“That must have been really frightening! I forgot you used to fly a lot when you were younger. You barely talk about it. You must tell us more!” The Enkanth’s secondary eyes squinted, while their crest feathers rattled. 

“Yeah. Not much to tell. Space is pretty much the same no matter where you go. And ships? Scrape away the fancy paint and they are all the same.” The Jotur rolled their eyes as they grunted, before going back to their quiet drinking. The tall, armoured, figure on the far end of the booth cocked its head to the side at their words; before leaning forward to speak. Athal’s voice was completely unfitting for their spindly, insectoid, appearance. Smooth, silky, and refined, their worlds rolled out from their mandibles with an embellished flair.

“You appear to be in particularly low spirits today, Rynn. Has the matter of Kantov’s return agitated you, my friend?” It paused a moment, broadcasting concern through its SPIKE to supplement the absence of facial expression inherent to its species.

“Or does another issue weigh you down?” The Archapital clicked its elongated head to the other side, inky-black compound eyes studying Rynn, as its mandibles eerily chittered.

“Just tired.”  

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Athal, I am sure that I am tired. ‘Tired’ is something that happens when you spend all sun-up working.”

“Very well. But know that we are here for you, always.” 

For a little while, the prior light hearted mood evaporated, their party falling uncharacteristically silent. Athal returned to their unfinished meal, picking at the platter of frilly green stalks that lay before them, while the others glanced between one another. Before the table could sour further, however, Syeal perked up and turned to the Jotur beside them. 

“I have an idea!” 

“Oh no.” Rynn groaned, slumping their head down until it contacted the sturdy table’s surface. 

“No, really, you will enjoy it. I am absolutely certain!” Another muffled groan sounded from Rynn as their face pressed harder against the table. Syeal spun in their seat, beaming at the tall insectoid to their other side. 

“Athal, why don’t we take Rynn over to the dance floor!” 

The Jotur’s head shot up, pupils narrowed to pinpricks, and whipped to face the rest of the group. “No. Absolutely not!” It was to no avail. Arimy grinned ear to ear, Athal clapped their hands together in assent, while Lepin leaned forward expectancy; all present bearing down on their quickly paling companion. Before Rynn could construct any coherent refusal, a few stuttered protests being all that managed to escape their lips, Syeal snatched them by the hand and started dragging them away from the booth. Athal followed close behind, their silky robes fluttering as they moved. Lepin and Arimy stayed, watching the disjointed trio stagger up to the brightly illuminated platform at the back of the building, and chuckled. 

The small, vibrant, floor flashed in brilliant neon as Syeal keyed in a request, playing a fast paced beat without words, before taking Rynn by the hands again. Try as they might to hide it, tightening the fabric hood that draped over their head, the reclusive biped’s face twisted into a wide grin as they squirmed. 

“Do you think, maybe, we should help Rynn? Well, at least try and rescue them from those two.” The humanoid fiddled with the sweet beverage before them, side eyeing the quadruped that they now shared the table with alone. 

“Couldn’t agree less. They're clearly enjoying themself up there. You can tell by the desperate flailing and how their face is buried in their hood.” Lepin snickered sarcastically, shaking their head as they spoke, then paused. Their demeanour darkened abruptly, as they looked away. 

“Actually, while it's just us, there is something I need to ask you.” 

Arimy had long suspected that their friend was hiding a part of their life from them; even if they’d never addressed the matter directly. They trusted Lepin, confident they wouldn’t ever do anything to get either of them hurt, yet still always worried for that side of their friend. From the few indirect conversations they’d had it was clear that Lepin worked with someone else. Who they were, what the two of them did together, and where they planned to take things Arimy had always been afraid to ask. It hurt to know that their friend felt so ashamed of something about themselves when around Arimy; even if they understood why. The two were of different worlds, almost as much so as Syeal had been to them when they first met, in ways that both of them knew could never truly be reconciled. Arimy’s family were off-worlders, having come as new wave colonists hand in hand with the terraformers themselves, with deep connections to other colonies. Lepin, however, was raised in a line of gravity-wellers - people tied to the world beneath them with little chance to escape. One came with power inherent, a clear path to the stars as their birthright, while the other had no choice but to strive by any means just to have a chance. Silence weighed down on the two figures briefly, an invisible vice stifling Arimy as they tried to respond. 

“What is it?” They managed after too long, Lepin still avoiding their gaze. 

“You know that pod you have, the small one, that you showed me a few weeks ago?” Rubbing the back of their head, with a weak smile, they turned to face Arimy again. 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you think I could borrow it - just for one sun-down?” 

Arimy looked away, thoughts swirling in their head, as an unpleasant silence descended upon the now sparsely occupied booth. Hesitantly, they faced Lepin and answered. 

“You know I will always be there for you, Lep. If something is wrong, you don’t have to hide it. I know you, sometimes, do things that aren’t exactly, well, entirely legal. But, Tiomi and I can help you, if you just ask.” 

“I know. But it's nothing like that - I promise.” 

“Then tell me what it is.” 

Lepin sighed, wringing their hands together, as a smile wormed its way up their face. An earnest, comforting, one that stretched from ear to ear along their snout.  

“I kind of wanted it to be a surprise, but who cares. I think I found something. Something big.” 

“What kind of something?” 

Lepin leaned forward, darting their head side-to-side briefly as they scanned the room for prying ears, before whispering to Arimy. “I think I found an Archivist site. An active site.” 

The humanoid stared at their friend, completely stunned, as they struggled to fully decipher what they had just been told.  

Archivist remnants were the holy grail of any would-be explorer; prized by research foundations, collectors, and even the Equinox administration itself. If Lepin really had found even just a derelict it could set them on the fast track to true Equinox citizenship - clearing the way for them to join the ranks of immortals that controlled their culture from the stars above. Active Archivist structures were the stuff of legend, known of in myth and rumour only.  

“That, well, that doesn’t seem possible.” 

“I know, but it really looks promising. Founders, Ari, if you could only see it, you would know why I’m so confident.” The quadruped leaned back, regaining their usual mischievous smirk, as their mind drifted to their find again. 

“Well, couldn't you just share the memo-data? We’ve paired our SPIKEs before.” 

“It's complicated. It's like the data is corrupted. There’s some kind of distortion caused by the site, affecting anything digitally saved while close to it.” Arimy frowned, their brow scrunching, as they listened. Memo-data, the digital medium by which organic memories were encoded by their implants, was not something that could simply be manipulated. Doing so would require massive alterations to the intrinsic systems of the SPIKEs themselves; if not to the biological neural matrices of memory itself. 

“Corrupted? Lep, memo-data shouldn’t get corrupted. What kind of artefact are you saying you’ve found?”  

“I have no idea. I think it's some kind of facility, or maybe a crashed ship, but I cannot figure out how to open the door.” Lepin paused, eyes flitting around again, before lowering their voice once more. 

“I got my hands on a laser cutter, which I’m hoping will be enough to get inside, but it's way too big to drag there on foot. That’s why I need the pod.” 

“That seems really dangerous, Lep. I don’t know about this.” Arimy’s own frown deepened, leaning forward while matching Lepin’s hushed tone. 

“Would you feel better about it if you came with me? At least just to see that it's real.” 

“Maybe, I need time to think about it. There is no way Tiomi would condone this, we’d have to, like, sneak the pod out without them noticing.” 

Both stewed in contemplation, worry amassing a crushing presence over the two figures, until Arimy noticed their three giggling companions making their return. 

“Lep, let's talk about this tomorrow, after Kantov gets here. We can see where things go from there, alright?” 

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“What are you two talking about, anything fun?” Syeal shuffled back to their seat, panting slightly between words, as they settled back down.

“Absolutely. Arimy here was telling me all about the intricacies of how our sampler tools extract genetic-”

“Ugh, no. Please. Have I not been tortured enough? Just talk about something, anything, else.” Rynn rasped, still catching their own breath, as they shut down the inbound technical rant. Little did they know, they just played straight into the clever quadruped’s scheme. Their disquieting conversations put behind them, but not forgotten, the party of five once more returned to more pleasant topics. They talked of memories, of the future, and of all the frivolous twists and turns of their day-to-day lives; as they cast their cares aside for just a little while longer. Words danced on their tongues and feelers in a mindless way, thoughts careening between their cybernetic souls regardless of the true noises of their nascent kin, as they made merry. They all knew that the days to follow would test them, with the return of Arimy’s estranged sibling high on the list of oncoming disruptions. Silently, a pair of figures watched them from a boot even further from obvious line of sight. Unassuming enough, easily mistaken for a couple of ordinary friends, the two trained mechanical eyes to track even the smallest changes in their prey’s expressions and listened with amplified ears to every breathy whisper. Somewhere, someone’s bristled maw curled into a vicious sneer; as all that its thralls saw and heard streamed to it from afar.

Koting:

Unfortunately, the ceiling of Koting’s makeshift hovel had not - in fact - changed. It remained an expectedly featureless expanse of battered metal plating. As dull and tiresome as the rest of the hole they called home. In their SPIKE, Koting ran a familiar bootleg sensory sim. It dulled everything, even making the scratching feelings inside their head bearable for a little while, to give the scruffy Vixhaltec a rare chance to simply be. Even with the sim running, the ghosts of thoughts writhed within their consciousness like the roiling churn of treacherous waters. All too strange, and far too volatile, to rise up to the surface. When they had started this life, so little time ago in the grand scheme of existence, it had felt so right. Nab a spare part here, copy a confidential file there, trade it to whoever was desperate enough to risk transferring merit to Koting’s SPIKE ID. It was slow - gruelling even - but faster by far than waiting in line for their application for Equinox-citizenship to go through official channels. It was all very well for people like that Say kid - Arimy or whatever - to wait; they had people willing to take them on just because of their name. But no one was looking to take on some nameless Vixhaltec with no official residence as an apprentice. No one was going to give them a chance to prove their merit. So they would just have to take it. It seemed simple, at the time. Oh how wrong they’d been. For so long it was just as hopeless one way or the other. When their family found out, and disowned their delinquent spawn, it became so much harder just to even survive. There had been a time when giving up seemed to be the only way out, certainly the easiest one anyway. To just fry their own SPIKE, and let their corpse rot in this dismal, rank, nest they’d made. They hadn’t been able to clean themselves in weeks, barely ate, never really slept. Koting was a dead body walking. But then Lepin came into their life. The quadrupedal Kyral had caught them skimming copies of survey data off a newly docked transport pod. Or rather, they’d caught each other doing the same thing. That should have been the moment they both dashed away, ran back to their respective roosts, and never met again. But that stupid, crazy, idiot didn't run. They just grinned. Like it was the funniest thing ever.

It was pretty funny.

Somehow, for some Founders-forsaken reason, they’d been ‘partners in petty crime’, as Lepin phrased it, ever since. It had been the best thing to ever happen to Koting. How the quadruped managed to lead their double life - innocent pod-pilot by sun-up, small-time thief by sun-down - was beyond implausible. Maybe it was thanks to their star-bound buddy, maybe it was because they were just more talented, but most likely it was just down to how stupid lucky they were. Always in the right place, at the right time, to make things right. Like when Lepin had met them. If they hadn’t, this hole would be home to nothing but maggots and bones. But together, they’d turned survival into profit. Profit into hope. At their current rate they would have enough merit score stashed away to afford charter off-world for the both of them by the end of the year. Wait a few more, and they could have enough to build something for themselves out there. They could leave the desperation and delinquency behind. Maybe, just maybe, they could even become more to each other than partners in crime.

But everything was becoming so strange. That war had been good for business, sure, but it had changed Lepin. They’d been so much more tired all the time. That wiley spark of theirs so much more, just, fake. Like something was tearing them apart, killing their mind from inside, all while Koting could do nothing but watch. They didn’t know how to save the one who’d saved them; and it burned. Anger had always been their default state of being, but who could they be angry at now? Lepin? Arimy? The Governor? No, just themself. Just Koting. This find, the deal, it was perfect. It could get both of them out. Get that stupid, loveable, idiot off this pointless red rock and up where they belonged. They were born to inherit the stars, unlike Koting, not wallow in misery beneath them. All they had to do was just stop trying to help everyone. To let Arimy go. To just choose themself for once. 

To just choose Koting.

As their mind riled and fumed, the small, scruffy downed, Vixhaltec curled in on themself. Clawed hands gripped at pale fur with a wrenching vice as they tried to stifle a bout of choking sobs. But, from their agony they were rudely interrupted. A ping bored its way into their skull, making their ears scream, as their SPIKE automatically spun down the sim. It was from the same anonymous sender. A garbled, distorted, string of thought-speak that hid any trace of its origin. It streamed through Koting’s mind with all the grace of a thermal slug to the face.

“You have one day to agree. After that, the deal is off, and we will take care of it ourselves. Goodbye.”

A cold shiver ran through their body, the message’s inbuilt menace cutting into Koting’s very soul as it played, as they filled with an overwhelming sense of dread.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four: Facade 

Illir:

The sun was visible. Not as a bright orb hanging from the sky, but for what it was. A bright dot in an endless dark. Its full power was filtered, tuned to safe levels to be seen on the screen that mimicked an arching viewport at the far end of the cabin. Shuffling, the figure lounging at the room’s centre struggled to quiet the discomfort gnawing at the back of their head. They had all assured her that it would be completely safe, that there was nothing to fear, and to simply relax. Yes, rest your head on my talons. I will fly you to my nest; for talk - I promise - and nothing more. Said the ravenous, winged, Virrex to the hapless Wyr still half in its burrow. 

The Equinox was not a new factor in senator Ilir Edinax‘s life. First contact with the mysterious, seemingly benign, aliens had been made half a century before she was born. Her whole life, they had been the status quo. But familiarity did not equate to trust. She had fought tooth and talon to get where she was now - politically - and learned along the way that the most dangerous people were the ones closest to you. And the Equinox had sidled up much too close for comfort. The implication of the fact that Ilir, an outspoken sceptic of the Equinox, was soon to be the first representative of her world to step foot on one of theirs - the capital no less - was not lost on her. It could be an act of good faith. It could equally be a convenient means by which they might have her position replaced with some lab grown replicant while she gets tossed out an airlock two star systems out from home. Now, only time would tell. If this was a one way trip, they had certainly gone all out to maintain appearances. The cabin was huge, bigger than any she had ever had to herself, and lavishly decorated. It had two ‘floors’ of its own, accessed by winding ‘staircases’ that sloped down on either side of the main cabin. The structure was bizarre, a fusion of archaic feudal design and futuristic techno-architecture. Vaulted ceilings, gilded murals, and marble plated floors; all suggested some modern take on the religious megaprojects of old. Yet it was far beyond modern. The stairs could mechanically tune the depth of each step to adapt to the species using them; a whole wall was dedicated to one singular screen that would show Ilir anything she wanted; furniture and amenities unfurled out of the floor to her desire. And that was just what her eyes could see. She knew there was more, because they had told her so. The Equinox had put a device into her - only after sixteen years of careful peer review by her world’s most trusted experts - just so that the atmosphere within the ship did not eat her alive. Clouds of artificial organisms, or micromachines of some kind, filled each lungful she inhaled; seeping into the spaces between her tissues. They rid her of harmful diseases, slowed her ageing, and boosted her metabolic efficiency invisibly even as she sat there. If not for the device in her neck, they would tear her down from inside. Who needs security when the air will devour intruders itself. She shuddered thinking about it. The drink in front of her, placed delicately on a marble stand before the ‘couch’ on which she failed to lounge, remained untouched. To the hells with it. Snatching the glass - or diamond, apparently - off its perch, she downed its contents in a single shot. It wasn’t strong, a simple beverage popular in her world, but it was needed. Begrudgingly, she let her toned form sink into the foam-fabric cushions of the alien furniture beneath her; tensed muscles relaxing just enough. But not for long. 

“Prepare for transit. Drive activation in one-zero.” The soft, almost sultry, and androgynous voice of the ship’s thinking machine chimed over unseen speakers. Transit. This decadent alien civilisation, unfathomably vast and ancient, called it's faster than light miracle technology Transit. Glancing to their side, eyeing the aliens’ distinctive floral-meets-geometric lacework of golden ornamentation that they plastered over everything, she wondered how they could be simultaneously so creative and so dull. 

The voice came again. “Transit to terminus in five...” 

Oh gods. This was really happening. 

“Four…” 

The esteemed senator swallowed nothing, their mouth dry. 

“Three…” 

She clutched the diamond vessel with one hand, the fabric beneath her with the other. 

“Two…” 

The farthest, before this, that Ilir Edinax had gone from her world had been a short suborbital flight in a new-age rocket; which had cost her a disposable fortune. The Equinox’s ambassador claimed this trip would take them to a distant galaxy at the beating heart of their alien culture. 

“One...” 

She screwed her eyes shut, waiting for something horrific. 

“Commencing Transit.” 

Was this death? There was no change. No sudden obliteration. No new sound. It was dark - but that was because her eyes were closed - while everything else felt just as it had before. 

“Transit complete. Brace for torch-drive ignition momentarily. We will soon be arriving at Grand Central Station, Terminus four, zero, zero, seven.” 

Opening her eyes, only one thing was any different. The diamond cup was still in her hand, foam fabric of the furniture still beneath her, lights still a calm off-white. The vast screen, however, had changed. No longer did it show her home world's sun, but an artificial structure above a foreign globe. Vast, ornate, undeniably beautiful in a terrifying manner. A roughly hexagonal formation, six arms splaying out from an immense nodule of metal and mimic marble, the station sat atop a spindly strand that stretched down to a planet’s surface far, far, below. Another strand careened upward and away, dotted with strange blisters and panels, presumably as a form of counterweight. Two more bubbling ropes of machinery and station cabins careened in opposite directions, wrapping around the equator of the world below; an orbital ring. All with that same pattern of ornamental gold trim, arranged in looping arches and ribbon-like arrays. Lights of engines swarmed around it like dust, each plume so small against the enormity of the station itself, while the ships were far too small in comparison to be seen.  

So that was their beloved Grand Central Station.

Rapt with watching the station grow gradually closer, she was startled by a chime that played at the door behind her. “Ambassador Eelys is requesting your audience, esteemed senator Edinax.” The machine declared in its usual lofty tone. 

“Let them enter.” Her own voice called out, sterner than she had intended. 

“Very well.” 

The door opened, just as Ilir straightened her own stately attire, to reveal the little menace her world had been subjected to for the last eighty-eight years. Why they had been given the job - and more importantly how they had kept it - was not so much a mystery as it was simply frustrating. Perhaps the alien politician had lost a bet, being drafted into this task to demean it. Alternatively, it was being cleverly used to put her people at ease; in which case it was arguably quite successful. She had faced serious difficulty rousing support for her policies just on the basis that most people on her planet assumed the whole Equinox was just as non-threatening. Mostly, however, she suspected the reason was to insult people like her. It was immortal, a near god, and commanded powers on an intergalactic scale; to which she had no choice but to offer respect and some level of compliance. All that, and it barely came up to where her legs joined her body. Small as most children were within their first few years of being able to walk; its spindly arms, with membranous wings anchored to the last digit of each one, were hardly thicker than Ilir’s own fingers. The digitigrade legs it hid beneath dainty dress-robes not much larger than those seen on the creatures her kind kept as house-pets. Its head was flanked by folding mandibles, encircled by a thick, bony, disk into which its four eyes were set, and fronted by a wide jaw full of sharp little teeth; all rendered laughable by the fact its whole skull could fit in her hand. Even the rattling frills that hung from the sides of its head could not begin to make up for its utterly diminutive nature. Its voice was surprisingly deep, almost baritone, and husky. 

“Greetings, your senator-ship. I do hope you were able to enjoy the provided amenities, even with the brevity of your time on this fine vessel.” That the delicate, diminutive, scampering organism spoke with such a voice was abrasively unfitting. 

“Naturally, ambassador. Are you here to escort me to the airlock?” A loaded question, if missing the crucial context necessary to distinguish its answer as innocent or threatening. If it did try pushing her out into space, she could at least rest assured she would overpower it physically. 

“Momentarily, yes. First, a concise briefing is in order. The ordinary matters of responsibility, the dos and don'ts, so on and so forth. I thought it worth mentioning, as well, that I will tragically be unable to accompany you for the majority of your visit.” Its wide mouth warped into a forced expression of displeasure - a mimicry of her people’s facial movements rather than its own - while Ilir had to restrain herself from breaking into a beaming face of joy. “To whom will you cede the responsibility?” 

“My associate, a highly skillful envoy. I am sure you will work as smoothly with them as you have with me.” Ilir could only hope this new contact would be more agreeable, in any way at all, than the petulant creature before her. 

“Their name is Sykei. Sykei Merilonia. Now, let us go through the briefing, it will be but a short ordeal” 

Sykei:

It was morning again, though darkness remained nearly absolute. Only a faint sliver of light came from one wall, as pale lines glowed in a delicate lattice, which did little to illuminate the room. It was not what woke the figure that stirred cautiously from the left side of the bed at the room's apex; their SPIKE being the offender instead. Gently, Sykei rose from the silken bedding around them, careful not to make too much sound. Sitting on the edge of the ornate cot, from which they had been forced to extricate themself, they quietly stretched in the dim room. The sliding of muscles and sinew under their skin sent a wave through their nerves; externalised by a rippling pulse of motion across the feather-like coat of their body, glittering iridescently even in the low light. Behind them, the bedding audibly shifted and then was still. Once sure that they remained the only one awake, Sykei darted with light footsteps to an adjacent room and closed the sliding door behind them. Muffled sounds of running water escaped soon after, too quiet to disturb the room’s second occupant, as they hastily bathed under misty streams. A few minutes later, having freshed themself to satisfaction, they slunk back into the main room. Steam wreathed their form in a shroud as they did; following them in like a ghost. Taking a brief glance at the half empty bed with their large amber eyes - to which the dark was little obstacle - one of their dusty blue eyelids twitched ever so slightly. Silently, the slender Mythteque recovered a plain dress-shirt from a slide-away compartment in the walls, already open but barely visible in the gloom, which slipped over their torso. A corset-like piece soon followed, its semi-metallic panels automatically flitting into place around their waist with a mechanical shiver. Loose garments were cautiously pulled over their digitigrade legs, brushing over the smooth scutes that adorned their shins, before fastening padded covers over their taloned feet. Reaching into the compartment again, they donned a two part set of ornate robes that draped over their arms and chest, while fanning out behind them like a cape. A pair of embellished epaulettes were snatched from the top of the compartment and fastened above their shoulders. Finally, a small silver medallion that signposted their position within the envoy offices found itself pinned to their robe. Their formal dress donned, the Mythteque inspected themself in the mirrored surface lining the compartment’s side. For a few lingering seconds Sykei observed the figure reflected back at them; their face etched with neither pride nor shame. Just as they started moving to open another, smaller, compartment; Sykei paused, as a low grunt sounded. Turning their head, their gaze fixed on the figure now sitting up on the bed, they whispered softly. 

“I hoped not to wake you.” Their voice was mellow, with a lingering chitter that echoed alongside each syllable, as they gave a delicately forced smile which the other could not see. The figure behind them sluggishly lay back down, letting out a low sigh before speaking. The other’s voice was gruffer, more due to fatigue than tone, with a raspy air to it. “It is for the best. I have much to do as well. Let in some light, when you are done, would you?” Releasing the breath they had been holding, the dainty Mythtque finished fetching their various ornaments and garments - some more messily discarded in the room than others. Sykei,once all traces of their presence were collected, obliged their companion’s request. A single tap of the blank wall that faced the bed triggered it to shift its state in a fluid wave; becoming translucent as a glow flooded the room. The cold light of dawn greeted them; paradise below reflected in the glistening orbs of their golden eyes.

Outside, it was still early morning. The sun had only just risen a hour or two before Sykei had woken, and still hung low on the horizon by the time they took their leave from those chambers. They were a pleasant set of rooms, with an even more pleasant view, atop one of the tallest towers in the city centre. Eventually, no matter the price paid to earn the right, a home as grand in turn would be their own. This section of the city was so beautiful in the early morning sun, from atop these immense monuments. Even just a few access ranks below, where their own residence waited empty, it looked just like every other place in this world: a featureless sea of gold, silver, and white; every tower striving to prove its worth, only to fade into the background. From here though, it was infinitely more. Gold encrusted spires struck up out of the misty biozones deep below, diffracting the dawn-light into a million hues, while innumerous chambers, villas, and smaller spires dotted the lower levels. Transport tubes that wound around the city mixed with walkways in a complex network of filaments that joined it all together and glistened in the dim glow. In the radiance it stood as calcified purity; a thousand crystal shards nestled in woven webs of marble. Photons danced on their surface to the symphonies of the universe; tracing the legacy of Solstice into Sykei’s very soul. So many of the immortals in these lofty towers never even looked at it, focused only on the vast star-port above. Perhaps it was simply sentient nature to be blind to the indulgences already enjoyed, and stare enviously at those yet out of reach. With a shake of their head, Sykei pinged the autopilot of their personal transport pod and walked briskly to a nearby access port. As the jewellery they wore swayed with their motion, catching the light of the rising sun, it cast light onto the floor and ceiling of the passageway through which they ambled. Patterns followed their stride with flickering impermanence; for just a fleeting moment, they could be a part of the beauty. But they did not belong here on their own merit. Not yet. Their personal transport pod slipped noiselessly into place, its doors folding open in segments, just as Sykei entered the small port nestled within the tower’s side. A delicate pale machine, outlined by sweeping bronze braces, with four comfortable velvet seats inside. Once settled in, the doors sealing with only a whisper, Sykei pinged the autopilot module. Seconds later, it was gliding on towards the starport where their new charge would be waiting. Lazily, they let their gaze wander across the digital screens that simulated the view outside. The tower of their companion’s abode slipped away, becoming just another silvery needle in the city’s jagged skyline, that spread out all around them, as their pod sliced through the air.

Illir:

The starport was utterly stunning. Ilir had seen the work of the Equinox before, but this was like nothing she had ever seen - or ever imagined. Broad arches and marbled pillars loomed over them, reaching up to the colossal curved ceilings above, with ingrained prowess. Golden art-deco murals and brilliant displays of opulence decorated everything she could spy, somehow never becoming overwhelming, in a gorgeous combination of impossible luxury and archaic nostalgia. Billowing crowds of fine dressed attendants and delegates meandered casually through the complex; scintillating under soft light that cascaded down from stained glass windows high above. All shapes and sizes, Ilir lost count of how many different species she could see without hope of success. Wings, scales, talons, feelers, and all manner of features mixed into a dizzying menagerie of diversity all around her. A chittering cough reeled her back into attention, only to stun her again as she locked eyes with its origin. Before her, just slightly shorter than herself, stood a lavishly embellished biped. Its face wore a kind and delicate expression. Large golden eyes lined by dark blue lashes that narrowed into points, while a wide smile spread over its beak-tipped lips. Sweeping down over the back of its head was a crest of pale blue quills, which elegantly sprouted from the rim of its forehead, while feathery antennae draped with curled ends on either side of its face. A cowl of similarly cyan structures wrapped loosely around its long, fragile, neck. Its scintillating, pure white, coat of feather-like down seemed to rustle with a life of its own as it began to speak. With slow, and careful, annunciations of Ilir’s home tongue; the smoothly androgynous voice sung out. “Greetings, senator Edinax, I am Sykei Meilonia. I will serve as your guide, liaison, and assistant for the duration of your visit to Solstice.”

”Yes. Of course. I must apologise, I was preoccupied with my… appreciation… of your impressive world.” A slight tingle scratched at the back of Ilir’s mind, almost entirely unnoticed, as they stood examining the envoy before them.

Sykei:

The starport lobby at the base of Grand Central Station’s vast space elevator was beyond imagination. But the awe-impressing presence was of no interest to Sykei, having seen it countless times before. The Mytheque charged through the halls with their head held high; seeking out their target. It was easily found. The Neoton, a mid-sized being of brutish complexion, wore plain and form-fitting garments that gave off an air of earnest authority; concealing their leathery skin. Vibrant crests adorned its head, flanked by tough projections of skin-coated bone, while two pairs of eyes lay in the mirrored protrusions attached to its lower jaw. Coughing slightly to draw the primitive ambassador’s attention, they spoke to them with slow, and careful, annunciations of the Neoton’s dominant home tongue; their voice smoothly androgynous. “Greetings, senator Edinax, I am Sykei Meilonia. I will serve as your guide, liaison, and assistant for the duration of your visit to Solstice.”

”Yes… Of course. I must apologise, I was preoccupied with my… appreciation… of your impressive world.” As the Neoton replied, Sykei’s SPIKE sent a subtle ping to the implant crudely fused to Ilir’s spinal cord. Ruthless programs bypassed her scientists’ unimpressive firewalls, unnoticed, to activate hidden backdoors built into the device. The burley creature’s mind unravelled digitally before Sykei’s consciousness, utterly ignorant to its own transparency, in a complex starburst of dissected intellect. All that she thought was secret, known only to her, fell prey to Sykei’s prying awareness in an instant. It didn’t even phase the Mythteque for a moment, the routine transgression being all too familiar an act, as they split their attention between Ilir’s words and the Neoton’s inner musings. Putting on a comforting smile and closing their eyelids a fraction more, they cut to the chase.

“Come, senator, let us begin.”

Illir:

The elegant figure motioned her to follow, as it turned, by sweeping a four fingered hand towards the direction of the starport’s exit. Speaking just loud enough to be heard clearly, it turned its head such that just one of its wide oval eyes could be seen - seemingly seizing her up with a passive glance. “Do follow closely, it is easy to become displaced in these crowds.” 

Despite her relatively larger size compared to the alien, the disparity between them still being more reasonable than it had been with her previous contact, she had to push herself to keep up with its purposeful strides. Try as she might, at the speeds with which they moved through the extensive lobby, she could hardly soak in the marvel around her as much as she would have expected the aliens to want. Strange, she thought, that the emissary of this opulent culture would not take the opportunity to gloatingly demonstrate the wealth and prowess of the Equinox’s capital.

“Apologies for the haste with which we must depart. I could arrange an opportunity for you to explore some of the city’s amenities and general sights, should you desire to, but for now I must see you to the Council chambers.” Again, it glanced back to Ilir to speak - seeming as though to anticipate the ambassador’s musings. ‘So that is their game’, she thought, ‘corral me straight to their golden cage’. She had heard many things from Eelys about the council chambers of Solstice; all hopelessly vague and presumptuous. From what she understood, however, it was a massive complex divided into six towers that surrounded a sort of meeting house in which major political decisions were made. Where on Solstice it was located she was unsure; which left a bitterly suspicious aftertaste on her tongues. One step after the other, ever closer to the belly of the beast, all the while she was stumbling blind. Careful to keep her tone agreeable, giving off no hint of her inner machinations, she probed the envoy before her for information. 

“Of course. Will it be long, to the Council chambers that is? I was given little information on its distance from this starport.”

“Not at all, but there is much to run through once you are there. And, candidly if I may, you would do well to take some time to yourself once we have arrived at your rooms.” Pausing it's march, and facing her fully, it closed its eyes till they were almost fully lidded. “I cannot imagine your time with Ambassador Eelys was anything short of exhausting. Even in the best of circumstances they can be an… acquired taste.” A soft rattle of amusement escaped its beak, before it returned once more to its previous pace, leading Ilir out of the building altogether. As soon as she stepped through the monumental vaulted doors, she found herself dumbstruck by the sight that greeted her.

She had, as of yet, seen the city only from orbit. There were no windows or screens on the elevator cabin that took her down from the station above to the starport itself. From here, however, it took her breath away. The whole city was elevated, walkways and gantries spanning the gaps between its colossal towers, with a vibrant green landscape below it. Looking closer, the ‘landscape’ was completely integrated with the planet-spanning machinery that formed the foundation of their city. She could see how jungles wrapped around the bases of their spires, growing like moss on the trunks of trees. Rolling green hills lay between them, as waves of bone-white structures rose up to support the catwalks on which she herself now stood. Glistening tubes strung out between the high risers all around the starport, in which little pods sped to and fro at incredible speeds, like diamond veins feeding each tower. All the while, ornate villas hung along the webwork of catwalks and transport tubes that joined each immense building to the next. The whole citadel bore the Equinox’s signature, as bright chrome geometry rimmed and decorated the matte white, grey, and black towers themselves. Many of the winding, alien, residential monuments themselves had stark emerald streaks of life upon them, sporting terraced gardens on their roofed protrusions and climbing biospheres along their flanks. For just a moment, her suspicion gave way to wonder. When the Equinox came to her world, almost a century prior, they did so offering utopia. She never believed it. But this, it was real. Was this what her world’s future had in store for it? Could her children’s children truly grow up to inherit an immortal life on a perfect planet, just as the Equinox promised they would? No, no there has to be a catch. This was their capital, one on which they have laboured for aeons - actual aeons - to perfect. Everything has a price, so what must these alien gods have paid for paradise? 

Sykei, as it had introduced itself, guided them across the open swathes outside the starport to an area reserved for guests of the Council - a jetty-like platform that hung over the green abyss below. There, a strange vehicle waited. A frail machine, its pale eggshell hull sweeping into organic curves, nestled in a beautiful cage of bronze. A door opened on its side to reveal luxurious crimson, velvet-padded, seats within. The envoy coaxed Ilir to enter with an elegant flourish of its arm, simultaneously hypnotic and eerily off-putting in the motions of the alien creature. ‘I’ve come this far’, thought Ilir, ‘so to the hells with it’. Only slightly hesitantly, she stumbled into the machine. Getting in was somewhat difficult, compromising her grace as she squeezed her way into place. Once settled, the seats themselves were pleasantly comfortable, seeming to mould to accommodate her form automatically as so many of the Equinox’s machines did, and roomy enough to stretch her legs if she chose to. Sykei slipped in beside her with practised diligence, the doors sliding closed behind it. Before she could begin catastrophizing all the ways her situation could be an elaborate death trap, everything around her changed. The matte panels of the hull, at first tinted a warm blush, phased into transparency in the blink of an eye. The red cushions and padded girders became a suspended harness, the only thing keeping her affixed, as the city’s foundations sprawled out below her. In her chest, muscles tightened as her heart raced, and a gasp of fright betrayed her lips. 

“Fear not, senator, they are only screens. The hull is still very much solidly encapsulating us. You are safer now than you were on the docking berth moments ago.” Sykei placed a single hand on the startled figure’s shoulder, the warm touch unsettlingly comforting to the still suspicious Neoton.

“I will activate the pod’s autopilot momentarily. You will hardly feel the momentum, but the sight may be alarming if you are unprepared for it.” Ilir pulled herself again into a more professional stance, straining slightly as fear still wormed its way through her mind, and watched as the city shifted around them. Towers sped away, the monumental gantries between them shrinking into filaments, as they rose up into the air. Gazing out, in a mixture of starstruck amazement and horror, Ilir took in the city’s true extent. It seemed to stretch away without end, taking up every point of the horizon. The only interruptions were the brilliant blue swathes of implanted seascape she had seen from orbit before; oceans cut by hand into the machined world itself. Even they were not without traces of the city’s architecture, as great sail-like structures struck out from them on an incredible scale. What esoteric purpose they may serve she could hardly begin to fathom.

Soon enough, they were speeding forward instead of ascending. The infinite citadel whipped away in a dizzying blitz; as a new sight grew ahead of them. A six limbed tower that stood out from all the rest in both its sheer size and ornamentation. Its geometry defied logic, anchored into place like a mast by spindly rigging, as it dominated the approaching horizon. Unlike the starport, or Grand Central Station above, it did not bear the disarming marble patterns she had become so familiar with. Instead, it was formed of jet black armour that jutted out in harsh slabs, engraved with gilded art-deco frescos, and rimmed by brilliant golden flying buttresses. Equal parts alien and godly, it was a cathedral made for titans.

“Welcome, Senator Edinax, to the grand chamberhouse of the Equinox Council Conflux. Although our governing system is not as centralised, strictly speaking, as those you are familiar with; it is here that many choices are made that will determine the fates of all seven-hundred galactic bodies under our charge. It is where you will be staying for the duration of your visit.” Apathy stained Sykei’s words, shocking Ilir more than she liked, as though what lay before them was as mundane as could be. Eventually, she found the strength to pull back together her resolve. But a dark feeling squiremed under her skin, one she had never felt before. Something more than fear, a sickening epiphany of sorts. Cautiously, she responded to the envoy’s comment with curt recognition. “I see.” It was clear now why they had brought her here. It was not to replace her, or sway her to their side, at all. It was all posturing. Showing her what they could offer, what she could stand to gain, and not so subtly showing how utterly worthless her resistance was. What could she, one lowly mortal of a primitive world, do to stand up against the might of a power seven-hundred galaxies strong? They could take her world without the slightest issue, but they don’t even need to. They could make her disappear, but she would never live long enough to be worth the effort. The price paid for paradise did not matter. They would take their due one way or the other.

Glancing at the creature to her side, a new understanding settled. A new meaning became horrifically evident in its kind expressions and gentle demeanour. To it, she was nothing more than an animal. An animal to be tamed.

Sykei:

As Sykei guided the Neoton beside them through the complex chambers of the tower, a burning sense of glory grew ever greater within them. Through their SPIKE, they felt Ilir’s resolution waver and wither into nothing. When they showed the brute the vaulted rooms in which the six sectors of Equinox bureaucracy convened to decide the fate of all that beneath them, her pride shattered. When they strolled with it between the ranks and files of glittering Praetorian regiments that stood guard over the living gods themselves, they felt Ilir’s belief dissolve.

What a pitifully predictable turn of events. The invasive implant within her neck showed Sykei every thought that passed through her head as she crumbled wordlessly under their might.

Still, her vain resistance persevered. ‘I will fight to the day I die’ Ilir thought, ‘if just to ensure that we live by our own design one more day’. So further they went. One by one, Sykei brought Ilir before the heads of the Equinox’s most esteemed divisions. Minds staged to command the future centuries of whole galaxies, brought face to face with the broken beast in tow, curtsied before the two with double edged praise on their tongues. Together, they meandered through gardens, museums, offices, and finally to the rooms in which the Neoton would stay for the next few weeks. Even by then, though all hope was taken from her, she came to the same defiant conclusion. She would throw everything she had at Ambassador Eelys when she returned. Ilir vowed to her deluded gods that she would sacrifice anything to oppose the Equinox. She would raise revolution, if she had to, and inspire fear like never before. She would make herself an enemy of her very state, if that is what it took. When Sykei left Ilir to those decadent rooms, larger and more glorious than all the palaces ever enjoyed by any tyrant in her own world’s brief and stillborn history, they did so with absolute satisfaction. She had done exactly as they wanted her to. What the Neoton failed to see, blinded by her defiled sense of pride, was that she had just doomed her own cause. She would die alone, a disgraced outlier, and be forgotten. In a century more at most, Ambassador Eelys would shake hands with the Neoton that would sign away their world forevermore. Perhaps, if Ilir had remained blissfully ignorant, that moment may have taken much longer to come. But now her vehemence would only serve to demonise her belief. Her fury would leave her powerless; and clear the way for the Equinox’s bloodless conquest once and for all. Just as they stepped out of the visitor chambers, however, a ping rang through Sykei’s SPIKE - interrupting their gloating imagination - that froze them stock still. It was a summon, effective immediately, from the head of the Envoy Office, Orios Kell. 

Orios Kell was among the most dangerous beings in existence. Officially, they were simply the head of Solstice’s envoy offices. In truth, they had been the master spy of the Equinox. For tens of thousands of years they had held the capital on strings, through networks of informants and manipulators distributed across the whole extent of the Equinox’s territories, and could bend the very fates to their whim. The war had weakened their political grasp, yes, but only a fool would fail to fear them even now. Being well over ten thousand years of age, Orios Kell was the true epitome of artificial godhood. Their residence did nothing to hide this. Its design deviated drastically from modern convention; its form dominated by sweeping organic shapes, translucent panels, and golden-woven marrows along the seams of the beams that held it together. Whites, blues, and all manner of pale hues smeared along the glossy surfaces - refusing to mimic any natural material - like the half-fossilised remains of a fallen god. It was terribly empty, haunted only by the strange clockwork drones which Orios Kell commanded directly from their own mind. Sykei’s every footfall echoed like heartbeats, cascading every which way in the deep chamber halls. Winding through the twisting corridors of ossified ornamentation, they arrived at last before the doors that hid the reclusive centre of Orios’ domicile. They skittered open of their own accord - just as Sykei reached them - to reveal the chamber within. It was decorated differently still, full of pedestals on which countless strange artefacts were displayed.

Just as Sykei stepped into the room, eyeing the cases, a husky voice thought-spoke melodically into their SPIKE. “Please, do give my collection an inspection, child. It is rare they receive an audience. I will be with you in person soon enough.”

Curious, if slightly indignant, Sykei obliged. Many of the artefacts seemed simple enough: preserved scrolls and texts from Founders know where sitting alongside ancient scabbards of long dead warriors. The more obviously prized one's were of distinct Archivist origin, dead lumps of unintelligible alloy sitting in clear view, but none compared to that which took centre stage. A large machine, of primitive design, sat nestled in a large glass bubble at the centre of the floor; just before the stairs that led up to Orios Kell’s private spaces. Its core was an octagonal prism of withered metal, pelted with holes and scrapes, topped with a shattered dish likely once meant for communication; beneath which hung a wiry triangular truss. Strangled outriggers and desiccated machinery poked out of the sides of the octagon. It was old, clearly, but hardly seemed as important as anything else in the room. Abandoned primitive probes of its kind were in no shortage; scattered through the cosmos in the trillions by fledgling races. Once more, the disembodied voice rattled into Sykei’s mind. “Ah, yes. My most valued prize of all. I doubt you know its significance.”

“It is a probe, is it not. An old one, yes?”

“Yes, and no, and yes again. It is indeed a probe, and it is certainly very - very - old, but it is so much more.”

“Did it belong to one of the Founders?”

“Oh no, much, much, older than that. Almost four billion years, it has survived.”

“That should not be possible.”

“It was found within an Archivist cache, preserved by one of just a few active devices we have ever found, in the galaxy we believe to have been the heart of their empire.”

“Why would the Archivists preserve a probe like this?”

“Because it was theirs. Of that I am sure”

Sykei looked again at the wreck. It was fairly large, more than twice as wide as Sykei was tall, yet bore none of the signature traces of Archivist technology. On it's side, a strangely well preserved plaque bore a golden disk - long eroded and pockmarked with damage - engraved with traces of what could only have once been a message.

“It seems strange to think they would have made something so… comprehensible.”

“Every culture starts somewhere.” The voice spoke in true, waves of audio rippling through the air, from above Sykei; as Orios Kell stood in person atop the room’s landing. 

The Quile, a member of a large quadrupedal creed, stood with a disarmingly casual stance; their segmented body bathed in flowing white robes. The pale face-like plate that held their nostrils and mouth smiled, flanked by four rows of reptilian eyes in the shell of furrowed plating that swept over either side of their head. Orios Kell’s four arms, two pairs of two - one above the other, hung loosely on their left and trailed lazily along the bannister to their right; as they sauntered down the steps. The towering creature, utterly alien to the soft form of Sykei, gracefully descended with an almost sensual gait. 

“I have a task for you, one that must be completed with the utmost discretion and urgency.”

“Of course, what will you ask of me, your grace?”

The quadruped beckoned Sykei to follow, as they walked along the rows of cases that spread through the room. Bearing a puzzled expression, as their feather-like down rustled in pulsing motions, the smaller envoy obeyed. “I assume you will, by now, have heard the rumours; young Merilonia.”

“Solstice is full of rumours, your grace. Some true, many fabricated, more still misinterpreted.”

“Very true, my dear, I suppose I should be more precise. Are you among those who suspect that the Gangmire war was an artificial one?” Orios Kell stopped, peering down with all eight of their eyes, placing a dark emphasis on their tone.

“I have heard such speculation, but I cannot say I subscribe to it. It was inevitable we would face a force of such a kind, we could not have expected to forever be without challenge.”

“Perhaps so, but in your justification you disregard three key details. First, that the Gangmire possessed such direct counters to our technology while lacking such technology themselves. Second, that they knew to strike the heart of our leadership, but not that our decentralised nature rendered such tactics obsolete. Third, that they knew of our existence itself, our deepest territories, and yet knew nothing of our full extent.”

“Could these not be attributed to poor reconnaissance? Or even coincidence?”

“They could. In fact, they match such things perfectly. The Imperials of the Gangmire were ignorant fools prone to rushing blindly into conflict, so it is obvious they would not think to account for the size of their enemy before attacking. Their technological precedent focused on weaponization and not life-improvement, so naturally they would not use the technology they know to destroy. They worshipped one central leader - an Emperor preserved through machines to lead them forever - so how could they understand an adversary who did not. It is all so perfectly reasonable. And so wonderfully convenient.”

Sykei’s eyes narrowed, as they questioned what the legendary spymaster proposed, before cautiously interrupting. “Apologies, but how does the ease with which these factors can be dismissed prove them correct?”

“It does not. It cannot. The perfect conspiracy, and thus the perfect lie. But I have lived long enough that the patterns of circumstance become transparent. This war was a fabrication, its perpetrator one among our ranks, of that I am sure. Especially due to this.” Orios Kell finished, as they rounded one of the larger cases, and stopped in their tracks, motioning to something unseen hidden by the structure. Before Sykei could come close enough to see what they were being shown, a noxious smell of burnt flesh impacted their sensitive antenna; causing them to recoil in horror. Hesitantly, they made the final turn. 

There, before the case, lay a corpse. It was clearly that of Orios Kell themself, although their head was reduced to little more than a melted heap of disfigured tissue. It looked fresh. “Someone killed me just after I summoned you here. They infected my SPIKE with the same digi-virus the Gangmire used to inflict true death upon Equinox citizens across our territories, including two thirds of the Solstice leadership. Unfortunately for whoever is responsible, I have many means to ensure such petty efforts could never succeed. Even then, they left no trace of their identity.” Sylei stared at the body as they spoke, struggling to restrain the horror that stained their tone. “What does this have to do with me, your grace?”

“Your task is to discover who is responsible.”

“Did you not just say that you summoned me before this occurred.”

“Indeed. Your task was then, as it is now, to determine the identity of our enemy within. I anticipated, correctly, that an attempt on my life would be made in response.”

“Surely the Praetorians would be a better choice for this… investigation?”

“Those gaudy fools have failed already. They are either complicit or incompetent; more likely still they are both at once.”

“But, surely this enemy, whoever they are, will simply kill me too? ”

“Perhaps, but I expect not. I have many enemies, and many rivals, all who would be eager to see me truly die. An attempt on my life is as coincidental as all the rest that I have described. Your anonymity, however, protects you. Take my word, you do not have any enemies capable of deploying such a measure against you. Thus our target cannot safely dispatch you without unravelling all that they have crafted.”

“What if it is a coincidence?”

“Then that is the answer, and you have succeeded in your task. But I suspect you will soon find yourself entangled in a web of lies, death, and war. One way or the other, I give you my word that you will be rewarded for your service. The previous candidate to inherit my post met their end during the Gangmire’s incursion, which leaves a space open for someone new, should they prove worthy in their ambition. I have my eyes set on many potential aspirants. But one, I think, is more promising than the rest.” With a smirk, Orios Kell’s eyes flitted up and down Sykei’s person. The Quile spymaster then turned, clicking armoured fingers to summon a pair of drones which began cleaning away the carcass, before making their way again to the base of the stairs. “So that is your task, my child. Watch for the patterns, and unmask this deadly facade.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: Price

Arimy:

Weight pressed down on Arimy’s thoughts, burdened by countless strangled notions, as they waited in the starport lobby with their progenitor. Above them, wrapped around the columns holding up the ceiling, digital screens depicted information of arriving vessels to their far-flung colony. One stood out from the rest, although not by its appearance, and had been the centre of their focus for the last few hours as it made its final approach. A small civilian charter, bound from a system near the constituency centre, of no particular note on its own. To the two waiting humanoids, however, it was the only thing that mattered. Even as it docked, tens of thousands of kilometres above them, a pang of fear knotted in Arimy’s chest. Perhaps a straggling Gangmire warship would appear, to take one last thing from them, or something would go wrong with the space elevator’s fastenings. But no, no such terrible thing occurred. Instead, their attention shifted to the screens that showed the progress of elevator capsules coming from the station above. Moving at incredible speeds, they would make it down from geosynchronous orbit - where the station itself lay - in just over two hours. So wait they would, hope and horror fluttering hungrily in their soul, for the capsule to arrive. The lobby wrapped in a single open cavern around the base of the space elevator, separated into compartments only by reinforced dividers, with some areas dedicated to cargo and others to passengers. It largely lacked significant embellishment, only having a few decorative strips of silver in simple geometric patterns, and was ultimately only a temporary fixture. How many times had they waited here excitedly for the rest of the family to come home from their distant adventures they couldn’t begin - or desire - to count. Tracing their eyes over what should have been well known, it all felt foreign now. Never again would it be the place of joy it had been before. Ghosts seemed to haunt every once-comforting corner of it, taunting them silently just in the edge of their vision, as they whispered unintelligible things from the fog. Tiomi’s voice snapped them from their rumination, however. “They are almost down, dear. Do you think they will even recognise us? It has been such a long time. We have changed quite a bit since last Kantov was here.”

“I hope they do, I really do. I wonder, well, I wonder if we’ll actually recognise them.”

“I suppose they will have changed as well. It seems so strange to think of them as anything but the lanky little rascal they were back then.” A sniffle sounded from Tiomi, as they wiped their eyes with the sleeve of their plain white jacket, and was soon followed by a deep sigh.

“I never thought things would go down like this, my dear. It’s just not fair. For you to have to see me like this, for Kantov to have to come home to such a sorry scene, for this place to be so, so, changed.”

“It's, like, so much colder than I remember. I don’t remember seeing so little beauty here.”

“Yes, I think we both saw it differently then. The light always felt so much more golden when I’d wait for Vikoy and your siblings with you, before” Silence fell on them, as each watched the progress of the elevator capsule on the screens. As it made contact with the lobby, they snapped their attention to the opening doors of the capsule dock itself. Scanning the small crowd that exited, panic sparked in their hearts. Did they get the information wrong? Did Kantov change their mind? Did something happen to them? Were they even-

From beside them, a distantly familiar voice croaked two words in a low tone.

“I’m home.”

Koting:

Try as they might, Koting could not quiet the feverish beating of their heart. Following the ominous message they had received early that morning - so early that the sky far away was still pitch black - sleep had not come to them. Not that they sought it out. Devices lay splayed out around them, displaying feeds and data streams from every system they had tapped across the whole colony. In their SPIKE, they frantically combed through contact chains, ID tracers, and every decryption module they could find. They had tried everything they knew, for nothing. The message’s sender remained as anonymous as ever. But none of it mattered, because of one thing more on the floor that had only recently joined the pile. Still slightly smoking, tainting the already musky space with the smell of burnt polymer and shorted copper, lay a small drone. A very, very, advanced drone. Koting had destroyed it by accident, after yet another failed tracing attempt, by flinging a handful of circuitry and plating at the wall. It had been shielded, using the particle barrier around it to hide its own light echo, and watching them for Founders knew how long - completely unseen. Kotings attempt to obtain any information from it's wreck had been predictably unfruitful; as its biomechanical insides had digested themselves the moment it was compromised. There could well be more, maybe a few or maybe hundreds, watching their every move. The thought made their skin crawl, their unkempt down bristle, and their empty guts churn. This was bad. They had to warn Lepin, that much was obvious, but Koting had a strong feeling it wouldn't be enough. The headstrong Kyral would be unlikely to take the threat seriously. Just like that first time, when the two had met, clear and present danger only seemed to draw Lepin in. It had taken Koting almost a whole year to convince them to agree not to take risky deals - which they had the sheer audacity to throw back at them earlier. Still, maybe they were right. If Koting had never reached out to begin with, maybe they would not be in this situation. It was all their own fault. They had to make this right. They had to save the one who saved them, to keep them safe. It had taken some time to think of something - of a way to protect them - but finally a path became clear. It was not safe or legal - and Lepin would never willingly do it, they were just too kind like that - but it was the only thing Koting could do. Scanning through their SPIKE, they loaded up a program that they had written by hand on that same fateful day that their saviour came to them. It had been meant to end their own life. Funny. Now it would save another’s.

Arimy:

The figure before Arimy was strange, yet hauntingly familiar. A bipedal humanoid, just like them and their remaining progenitor, who shared their own stark brown head of hair. While Arimy’s own was light and curly, the other figure’s was spiky and dense. Their eyes were an electric blue - a result of the spinning circlets of implant-tech within them - that bore dark bags underneath; giving the impression of lightning in a storm. Small dots of stubble messily painted their chin and cheeks, not nearly dense enough to hide the distinct seams of surgical cybernetic installations that ran in tandem with their cheekbones. Over their toned, muscular, body they wore dense and dark coloured clothes. A thick jacket stretched over them, while baggy leggings covered in pockets and holsters hung from their waist. One leg of the outfit was rolled up, keeping the fabric out of the way of a crude mechanical leg that seemed to sprout from the figure’s flesh just before their knee. Arimy never would have recognised them, if not for two things. One, a streak of blond that naturally ran across their scruffy hair. The other, a small triangular birthmark on their neck.

“Kantov?”

“Hey, kid. It's been a while, hasn’t it.” Kantov’s voice was deep and reserved, a mellow smile stretching across their face, as they rubbed one hand behind their head. Before anyone could say a thing, Tiomi rushed forward and wrapped the tall humanoid in a crushing embrace.

“Founders, let me breathe will you, Tio.”

“Sorry dear, I just missed you so much.”

“I missed all of you too. I should have come home a long time ago.”

“Come, let us get away from this place. Your sibling and I have set up the house for you, do you have any baggage to collect?” 

Kantov’s face darkened, struggling to keep eye contact with Tiomi, at the question. 

“No. Let’s just get going.”

Briefly, they all stood unmoving, with an air of hesitation hanging over their minds. Finally, Tiomi took Kantov and Arimy both by the hands and turned. Together, the three survivors of the Say family rushed out of the busy starport lobby. They meandered through the crowded streets outside, taking in the familiar view of the colony, before boarding the battered old cargo pod that would take them home. It trundled slowly through the airways, passing by the makeshift spires and facilities around them, in silence. Home, the topmost multi-story apartment on a stack of largely identical homes near the outskirts of the main residential district, crawled into view. Kantov’s face bore a complicated expression, unsmiling yet without any distinguishable frown, as they approached. “It really hasn't changed at all, has it?”

“I suppose not my dear. What do you think, Arimy?”

“It's the same, and different. Everything changes. I, well, I just hope it will change again, for better this time.” Arimy looked up at their older sibling, the two beginning to share a knowing half-smile, and let out a breath they’d been holding in for too long. “We’re home.” They both said, as one.

Lepin:

Lepin’s plan for the day had been really rather simple. Sleep in, take a brisk walk in the woods just outside the border of their home-district, and then meet up with Arimy after sun-down to head out with the pod. An easy start; to compensate for the stress of their secretive reclamation effort. All disrupted completely when Koting sent them another last minute ping on their SPIKE to meet up. Oddly, however, they were not to meet at Koting’s usual hide-out. Their partner-in-petty-crime had asked them to meet at the All’s Well. Not a massive difference, distance wise, and much more convenient. But it was odd. Koting had never gone anywhere public with Lepin, let alone the place they had both agreed a long time ago they would never go to at the same time. So there the quadruped was, sitting at a two person booth near the front of the establishment, keeping an eye out for their scruffy companion as they watched the door. The All’s Well didn’t look all that different during sun-up than it did sun-down, due to the absence of windows, and was just as sparsely occupied as it ever had been. They took a sip from the crisp beverage before them and gazed around the room absentmindedly, taking their eyes away from the door for just a moment. Through all the years that Lepin had frequented this place, its owner had never changed the decoration. The vibrant walls reflected neon illumination in a matte polymer design that made the whole thing look like a cheap toy house. At the bar-counter the lithe Kaskith proprietor weaved and slithered smoothly from one customer to the next, their segmented limbs quivering like the arms of a mechanical doll, while serving all manner of exotic drinks. Suddenly, a chiming sound from the door alerted them of someone's entrance, drawing their attention back to the front of the building. For a moment, they couldn’t believe what they saw. It was Koting, no doubt, but their appearance left Lepin taken aback. They wore a plain, loose, dress shirt that looked newer and cleaner than anything they’d ever seen the shabby Vixhaltec own; with uncharacteristically well-kempt leggings and overcoat to match. Their sandy toned down, usually wiry and rough, was washed and carefully combed to a smooth finish - not dissimilar to the feathery coat of Lepin’s own. While tired dark marks still hung under their large eyes, their face was equally well cared for. They were all but unrecognisable, save for the way they held their wedge-shaped head low. Koting stood awkwardly at the entrance, scanning with wide and nervous eyes from one booth to the next, before spotting Lepin. Dashing hastily across the room, the Vixhaltec sat down opposite their Kyral co-conspirator. 

“Well, well, well; Ting. Never thought I’d see the day you cleaned up like this. What’s the occasion?” Lepin leaned back, letting their forelegs cross over one-another under the booth-table as they lounged sideways over their own two-person-wide seat. 

“Oh, sure. Laugh it up, Lep. Like you put much effort in.”

“Please, Ting, my outfit is all the rage.” The quadruped puffed up the thick coat they wore open, showing off the lacy neck of their own dress shirt, pulled over their long barrel-like upper torso. “Among stuffy stuck-up spacers, maybe. Plus, not so sure you pull it off.” Koting leaned forward with a taunting smirk, as they fixed the upturned spot of collar Lepin had left unnoticed on their coat. “Anyway, seriously, Ting. What’s this about?”

“A couple things, actually. None of them, well, great.”

“I’m listening.”

“I got another message from our ‘collector’ buddy; it doesn’t look good. We have till midday to agree. But, I am not expecting you to open up to the idea. It's just, something is wrong with this. Really wrong.” Koting’s sharp and strangely well groomed ears clicked into rigid backward positions, twitching with clear fear, as they spoke.

“I don’t think it's safe to go after that site at all, Lep. There was a drone - high tech - spying on my… place… for Founders know how long. Doubt they know where the site is, I mean you never even told me, so I am not trying to suggest just giving up on it. But, seriously, I am worried these people will do something bad to us, to you.”

“Arimy and I are going out there this sun-down to try and get into the site; no petty criminal is going to pull anything funny with an aspirant like them around, you know that.”

“That’s the problem, Lep, I don’t think these people are like the idiots we usually have to worry about. I tried everything, everything, to trace those messages. And got nothing. The drone? It was mili-tech, Lep. I’m sure of it. Only two kinds of people have that kind of stuff: actual military agents and raiders. Neither one is good news.”

“Come on, Ting, you know me. I won’t do anything stupid. Too stupid, anyway. It’ll be fine.”

The Vixhaltec’s ears dropped, their forced smile falling away, as they reached a hand out suddenly. “I cannot stop you, Lep. You wouldn’t be you if I could. But, there is something else I need to tell you.”

Kantov:

So, this was home. It seemed so very alike the ghost that had haunted Kantov’s memories all these standard-years since they’d made the biggest mistake of their life. Still, little things stood out here and there as reminders to the time they’d lost: how the ornaments that decorated the halls seemed denser packed than memory served, the way in which some rooms seemed to have swapped function, and countless minute changes from the all-too familiar model that clung to their mind. Within them, Kantov felt like a parasite. Alien and destructive; how each footfall seemed to stain the perfect floor with invisible marks of red left the humanoid mentally clutching their throat shut to stop their rising bile from defiling it more. To either side, the family they’d left to die clung with gut-wrenchingly desperate smiles. Little Arimy - oh how they had grown - still stammered and stuttered as they always had; babbling nervously about all the things that Kantov had missed. Avoiding all mention of the taken, of the wretched war, and the hurt that traced lines of pain in the poor young-adult’s face; of course. Never one to offend, always desperate to please, and so reliant on the charge of others. In the past, it had made Kantov furious. Now, the innocence inherent within their little sibling’s very being filled their heart with boundless regret. Their progenitor - their genesake - was even worse to look at. Tiomi had cared for them with absolute love, given them everything they should have ever needed, and all for what? A child who had abandoned them, and all they stood for, over petty arguments. How could they still smile up at Kantov now? Yet they did, beaming with joy as poorly hidden tears welled in their aged eyes. Within those eyes was an unconditional admiration Tiomi offered without hesitation. Try as they might, Kantov could not return it. And then Arimy asked the question - innocently meant - that they least wanted to hear. “So, what was it like?”

“The journey was fine, a little stuffy, but no real issue, all things considered.” Trying their best to feign ignorance, they mentally begged their sibling to leave it at that. Not that such mercy would be deserved, they thought to themself.

“No, well, I mean the military. What is it called again, the Expeditionary Defense Forces?” 

“I think most people up there call them the Legionnaires, dear. Isn’t that right Kantov?” 

Sighing, Kantov gave their gruff response. “Uh, yes. Sorry. It was interesting. Way more cosy than you might expect, turns out the Legionnaires are not even as frugal as most civilian transport charters.”

“I remember you always used to talk about how much you wanted to see warships up close. They always look so incredible on the Trans-Net, what were they really like?”

“You don’t see much when you’re on them, to be honest. No windows or anything like that. Just a lot of gold and black.”

“It must have been terrifying when the war started, did you ever have to fight any Gangmire ships?” For a moment, Kantov stopped. Inside their head, so many blue-black horrors bore down upon a broken cage; lances of light and ions screamed soundlessly across an endless void; blood curdling cries of a hundred souls wailed as their SPIKEs melted in their own skulls; and systems flickered with the choking death throes of the ship’s own VM. After just a second longer than comfortable for the others beside them, Kantov chuckled. “No, I was lucky. Sorry kid, but I never saw those maggots myself.” They said, lightheartedly, as they reigned in the urge to be sick.

“Well I am very glad to hear that, dear. They could not take you too, and that is all that matters. Now you are home, even if just until your leave ends, and safe again.” Safe again. Home again.

They were in the main room, a wide open space full of furniture for lounging around the convertible window-screen overlooking the colony beyond. As they stood, Kantov spotted something. A glittering holograph, it's three dimensional image embedded in a thin diamond lattice, of Arimy and another figure. They didn’t recognise them. The other was a blue feathered Enkanth, their wing-arms draped casually around their sibling’s body, with an almost comically joyous expression on their alien face. “Hey, kid. Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, well, that's Syeal. My, uh, partner.”

Grinning ear to ear, Kantov turned to their sibling. “Never figured you for the romantic type, kid. Nice catch.” Arimy’s own face burned the brightest red it quite possibly ever had. Tiomi only snickered, watching as the older sibling dredged every detail of how the two had met out from the ever more flustered Arimy. Hope burned in the chests of all three; but unseen barriers hid it behind false comfort. Hollow words and rigid conversation filled those haunted halls for hours on end, till sun-down fell. But for once, their nature regardless, that house knew an end to the solitary silence that had cursed it for all too long.

Lepin:

Sitting across one another in a booth meant for anywhere from two to six - depending on the species really - the two partners-in-petty-crime studied each other attentively. As they did, Lepin felt Koting’s SPIKE ping a pairing request - something they’d never done together before - as the Vixhaltec gently held their hand. Utterly failing to hide their own surprise, they accepted. SPIKE pairing was not uncommon, not really even something considered intimate really. But it was always important. A separate level of communication that allowed both participants to better understand the other’s experience; owing to the indirect fusion of neural interfaces. As the two paired, however, Lepin immediately sensed that something was wrong. They could not begin to place what it was, but the feed coming from Koting’s SPIKE seemed off, somehow echoing as though coming from an empty place. “Ting, are you ok? Your feed seems-”

“I don't want to lose you, Lep.” Koting stared into the Kyral’s eyes as sensations of fear, joy, and pain radiated in strangely distant echoes from their SPIKE; matched in turn by shock and hope that bled from the other’s. The two sat there for what felt like forever, as each processed the streams of digitised awareness that they shared between one another. “I promise I will be safe, Ting. I got caught up in things lately, I know, but I am not going anywhere without you.” Lepin squeezed their hand around Koting’s, willing comfort to cross the machine-melded bridge that strung between them. The Vixhaltec only shuddered, disconnecting their SPIKE interface, and hung their head; not meeting Lepin’s eyes. “I’ll wait for you.” Their hands seemed shakier than Lepin had ever seen them, Koting’s composed disguise falling away under closer inspection, as they got up from the booth. Somehow, the way they could barely hold themselves seemed terribly similar to how they’d looked when the two had first met, an appearance that left a crushing spark of fear burning in Lepin’s chest. “You need to be safe too, Ting. Promise?”

Their partner-in-petty-crime looked back at them as they turned: before giving away a weak smile. Their normally fiery eyes were dullened, hidden facial muscles twitching in barely disguised pain, while their ears being held neutrally horizontal. Wordlessly, the Vixhaltec made their way back out of the All’s Well and into the busy streets outside. Lepin was left shocked, and worried, in their suddenly lonely booth. With their own thoughts whirling in their head, they never noticed how the data of their SPIKE - the digitised culmination of their very existence - had been copied. It was never something to worry about during pairing, since the immense quantity of data could never be accepted by anything short of an empty SPIKE. In turn, Lepin utterly forgot the strange feeling they’d experienced when communing with Koting; and thus never realised that the neural implant buried within their companion’s mind had been burned clean of its owner’s imprint. When Koting stumbled out of the All’s Well; they did not do so alone. Not truly. 

The sun had shone down rays of hope upon the Say household till the last, illuminating the three disjointed humanoids as they struggled to reacquaint themselves with one another. Its efforts had been for naught, in the end, however. Invisible walls remained unbroken between each member of the shattered family within. The self-outcast child held themself back, their infrequent words laced with reservation, fearing judgement for their own reality. A wilting sibling struggled to match memory to reality as they faced the unfamiliar nature of the one they once knew. The lone parent, stripped of all that they had built, could only watch with fragile thoughts as the miracle for which they begged failed to manifest. Each hoped, alone, that time would mend the monstrous divide between them. As darkness fell, one had plans of their own - or at least a plan not shared with others in the empty house around them. Arimy Say slipped from one dark room to the next, responding in though-speak to the friend that they collaborated with. Lepin waited for them at the doors, the quadruped sneaking with Arimy to the pod bay below as quietly as they could manage, and wasted no time setting up the speedy little machine for flight. Getting out unnoticed was no real challenge, as the small pod’s EM sails barely made a sound, and all such worries were soon left behind as the pair sped silently into the darkness of the sleeping colony’s airspace. Their destination: the rolling hills of woodland that sprawled out across the distant edge of the steppe on which the colony had been built. Equally unnoticed was the slightly larger pod that followed them at a distance, its own built in particle barrier warping the light around it to hide it from sight. One after the other, they sped across the wilderness. Little did either know, something else watched them too. Something buried deep, forgotten, that lay waiting in a place beyond darkness.

Arimy’s speeder pod, or rather their progenitor’s, was a far cry more advanced than the colony registered ones Lepin was used to flying on the job. Sleek chrome panels formed an aerodynamic cradle around the teardrop bubble of transparent alloy in which the two figures sat; while twined EM sails formed razor-sharp bladed prongs above and below the pod’s centre. It cut through the air with barely a sound, the power-hungry engines fed by a miniaturised power plant contained in the heavily armoured blister at the back of the machine, while manoeuvring with articulated winglets that steered the vessel to its pilot’s commands. The autopilot systems were more sophisticated than Lepin had realised, but they chose to override them anyway. Lepin, their legs folded under their body as they sat forward to man the controls, coughed to get their friend's attention; keeping their own eyes fixed on the whirling surroundings. “So, why’d your progenitor feel the need to requisition something like this. Not complaining, Ari, just surprised.” 

Arimy sighed lightly, leaning back, before speaking quietly - as though still afraid of waking their progenitor. “Tiomi was going to start working with the terraformer maintenance crews to help save up medi-credit for my ascension, before the war anyway. Needed a faster pod to get around, but it's not, well, an issue now.” Mentally, Lepin winced. It had been such a while since that plan fell short, what was left of the Say family having lost most of their medi-credit trying to get backups of their deceased relatives restored - to no avail. It was unlikely Arimy would be upgrading to a less fragile body any time soon. The process was far from uncommon for star-aspirants like them, yet far out of reach for people like Lepin. No matter what you were, though, it was not something one could just do on a whim. It took a lot of saved up medical credit to afford such an operation; all just to transfer to a slower ageing body.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise-”

“It's ok, Lepin. I didn’t really even feel ready to go through with it then, let alone now. I am fine waiting longer to get my body upgraded, if ever.”

“Well, thanks for letting me borrow the pod. I promise I won’t crash it, but I think you trust me well enough for that, right Ari?”

“Sure, I guess. I never really trust anyone in these death traps.”

“I get that, you never really got over that crash your- nevermind.” As they quickly curtailed their remark, Lepin again found themselves mentally chastising themself.

“I never really did, no.”

“We should be close to the signal zone now, watch the feed.”

“How will I, well, know we are in it?”

“Oh, you’ll know.” 

Sure enough, Arimy soon let out a gasp of surprise. “The feed just cut off! My SPIKE feed is just static, the pod’s too.”

“Looks like we’re close then. I’m going to take us in slower and lower to the ground. Turn on the floodlights, would you?” In a flash, the ground below them lit up. Blacks and greys of sun-down becoming awash with the familiar red of vegetation and yellows of the earth below.

Reeling back the throttles, as they gracefully pushed the machine down to the ground, Lepin let it skim at little more than a running pace just above the surface. As they slunk through the red coloured woods, something gnawed at the back of Lepin’s mind. A line of thoughts they just didn’t know how to tackle. Hesitantly, they drew their friend’s attention once more.

“Hey, Ari?”

“Yes?”

“I have something I need help working out. Not about this, at least not exactly.”

“Well, go ahead. I am not, you know, the best one for advice but I’ll listen.”

“I have this friend, who used to just be someone I work with, that I was kind of having an argument with about this site. They wanted to sell it, I wanted to use it, and it made me realise how little I was thinking about their future. Honestly, how little I was thinking about the future I actually want too. And to make matters more complicated, they told me something today. Something that massively changes what we, well, mean to each other.” A small chuckle escaped Arimy to the side. “Do you, uh, feel the same way they do?”

“I think I do.”

“I think I know what the issue is, Lepin.”

“Hah, I find that unlikely-”

“Seriously. I can be, well, awkward sometimes. But I am not an idiot. You have been acting differently ever since the war, ever since the my siblings and progenitor died.”

Lepin said nothing, head hanging slightly, while their eyes fell slightly darker. 

“You don’t need to protect me, Lepin. I just want you to be happy. To be yourself. I think that is what this ‘friend’ of yours wants too. You have so much ahead of you, like, I don’t know how to put it…”

“‘I was 'born to inherit the stars’, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“I think I know what to do, then.” Looking back up to the controls, the pod having come to a stop as they talked, Lepin thought about what it was that they wanted. To fly from star to star, to see worlds far away, to be something more than some colony-pest destined to obscurity. To see Arimy live a life without pain, one in which they could just be. To have someone they loved close, to be there for that someone. To be there for Koting. ‘I choose you, Ting. I promise.’ Beside them, their friend uttered a breathy question as they peered into the darkness behind their pod, a look of confusion appearing on their face.

“Hey, what is that?” they said, their brows furrowing.

Arimy:

Lepin seemed lost in thought after their brief conversation. Arimy would never call themselves a particularly reliable source of advice, in pretty much anything but the most practical work related sense, but what they had to say seemed to have been enough to get their friend thinking. Or maybe they had not heard at all and were, actually, just daydreaming. It would not at all be surprising. Something caught Arimy’s eye, however, outside the pod. Behind them, a slight distortion seemed to slowly crawl closer. It was as though a patch of air, perhaps three of four times the size of their own pod, was shimmering and warping in a darkened shape. It seemed impossible, but it really looked like the effect created by camouflage tuned particle barriers. The membranes of energised particles flowing within tightly knit magnetic fields shifting and artificially refracting light to hide the emitting vessel at its core. A lump of fear grew in Arimy’s throat. It made sense, the authorities probably would have questions for a random speeder pod sneaking out into the woods. But since when did they use particle barriers like that? 

Nervously, they tried to get their friend’s attention; speaking with a hushed and breathy tone. ”Hey, what is that?”

“What is what?” The Kyral beside them snapped their head back to spot what Arimy was looking at. “That can’t be good. You stay in the pod, I’ll see what they want.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Lepin?”

“Don’t need to be going and getting something on your record. I’ll be fine. Here, just in case, I’ll punch in the destination coordinates to the autopilot. If they get antsy, just run. I am fine sitting in a cell for a bit, but you should lose them easily in this zone since sensors are good for nothing here.” Lepin leant to the boxy console that lay between them, rattling in a series of commands, as the autopilot module chirped its confirmation. “Be careful Lepin, I have no idea how to fly this death machine.”

“Glad to hear I’m valued.”

“Sorry, that’s not what I-”

“It's fine, Ari, I’m just teasing.” The quadruped stepped out of the pod, waving with a disarmingly casual flair to the spot behind them. As soon as they did, the distortion fell away. In it's place, a bulky machine hovered. Jagged, rugged, and anything but aerodynamic; it was most definitely not a security force vessel. A hatch popped out on one side of the asymmetrical capsule at its centre, from which three figures emerged. Two were utterly unfamiliar. One was a Hycrath, the tendril-maned quadruped’s face screwed into a very unwelcoming mannerism, wrapped in a dense cloak. The other was a scrawnier reptilian looking creature, a Liaka, whose narrow maw belayed no recognisable expression. The third figure was easily recognised, however. A squat insectoid, thick neck wrapped in a dull blue scarf, bearing a heavy coat that hung well below the bottom of their carapace. One of their four arms was held under their coat, while the rest clicked around outside it. Catching their own surprise, the Kyral greeted them as calmly as they could. “Hey, Diltat. What are you doing out here?”

The gruff voice of the little Ilikay sounded loudly through the air as it replied. “Could ask the same of you, friend. It's late, and this area is… unsafe. Where were you going?”

“Oh, just taking my new pod for a little joyride. Blowing off steam, you know?”

“Odd place to do so, don’t you think?” The two flanking figures stalked closer, both much taller than Lepin. 

“Let’s cut to the chase, Lepin. I like you, you’re a good kid at heart. Where is the site?”

Arimy watched their friend visibly recoil, darting their horn-topped head side to side as the other two figures spread out around them, holding up their hands as they tried to calm the situation. 

“Now hold on a second, Dil - buddy - let's not do anything brash. I really have no idea what you are talking about; so if it's all fine with you I really should be getting-”

“Last chance, Lepin. I have a job to do, one I have no option to refuse. I know all about that little Vixhaltec sewer pest you’ve been playing outlaw with.” Diltat’s hidden arm seemed to flex under their coat, gripping something unseen. Lepin paused, still standing their ground, as a nervous grin spread across their jaws. Again, Lepin’s head flitted between the three encroaching figures.

“Look, Dil. Let’s all be reasonable about this. Go home, clear our heads, and all that. We can talk about the fine details tomorrow, what do you say?” The horned quadruped smiled, stepping backwards towards the waiting pod, as they spoke; still holding their hands out with open palms. With a chittering sigh, the squat insectoid before them shook it's head. “Wrong choice.” 

Arimy watched one of Diltat’s hands, previously hidden inside their coat, whip out in a flash. It was clutching into a large object, nearly half as long as the little Ilikay was tall; with projections of luminous radiators jutting from it's sides like fins. A jolt of red-hot plasma lept from the nozzle at the device's end; arching forward faster than Arimy could watch - though they couldn’t look away. All they could do was stare and gasp, as Lepin’s lifeless form fell twitching to the ground - a steaming stump all that remained where the Kyral’s head should have been. In an instant, they were gone.

For a moment, Arimy just waited for Lepin to spring back up. For Diltat to reveal the weapon to have been a fake and roll over laughing. For the two glowering figures that were now charging forwards to stop in their tracks; all as a still living Lepin hastily explained how it was all just a really bad joke. But none of that happened. Stepping over the quadruped’s corpse, the insectoid muttered something heard only by itself, Diltat pointed to Arimy and barked commands at the other strangers. They were almost at the door, easily able to see Arimy through the pod windows, and bore their fangs menacingly. As they lunged, panic flooded through Arimy with an intensity like never had before. They barely even realised that they had slammed their hand down on the autopilot throttle; even as they slammed back into the seat from the sudden acceleration. As tears stinged in the corners of their eyes; Arimy begged for it all to disappear. To wake up; and have it all just be a bad dream. To get a ping from Lepin saying it was all a misunderstanding. Instead, Arimy just saw their smoking headless body collapse all over again; the image burned into their mind. Only the force of motion against them kept them from being sick; but they could feel that it would not be enough for long. Trees and rocks whipped away rapidly, as darkness swirled around the pod. Out of the darkness lept a flash of red light from behind them, followed by a series of squealing complaints from the autopilot module as it flashed damage warnings on its screens. The destination Lepin had programmed in, however, was close; and rapidly closing. Arimy’s head spun as they desperately strained to pull themself back into some sense of reality. They wondered, would Lepin have even felt their flesh disintegrate as it was wrapped in that screaming torrent of light and ions? Would it have been painless? The thoughts sent nausea spreading like wildfire across Arimy’s body; forcing them to bend forward and evacuate the meal they’d eaten with their family just a few hours before.

Ahead, a cave entrance grew closer - rapidly closer - as Arimy sped towards the preset destination. The autopilot module began pleading with its sole occupant to evacuate - warning that it had lost control of the deceleration systems and could not slow down. Snapping from their daze, with a stinging wipe of their mouth, they looked forward; seeing the opening of the cave careen towards them. Frantically, Arimy clawed at the door of the pod, trying to pry it open as the wall of stone ahead grew larger. With a final kick, it gave way, spitting the humanoid out just before the pod slammed into the cavern walls. The delicate machine blew apart - the kinetic energy of the detonation knocking Arimy back - while shards of shrapnel flew every which way. Without even realising, Arimy found themselves clinging to the edge of the hole that opened up under the cave, dangling above the lightless cavern below. Just as they went to pull up onto solid ground; something hit them in a single crashing wave of sensation. An incomprehensible voice, calling out mercilessly, from somewhere unseen. It coursed through their mind, willing them to let go, with overwhelming power. The ringing in their ears grew into a scream, one that drowned out their own, as Arimy curled into themselves and clutched their head. Writhing in agony, they let go, and passed out before they even realised they were falling. Down, down, down they went; disappearing into the darkness beneath them. The only remaining proof that they had ever been there at all were the flaming ruins of machinery around the cave’s mouth. A few minutes later, three figures walked up to the sinkhole, peering down it. They talked amongst one another, confirming they would return sun-up to investigate with more equipment. They paid Arimy’s casualty no mind, planning to deal with the corpse, which they no doubt would find scattered messily at the bottom, when they came to it. They felt the voice too, just as Lepin had weeks before, but that which Lepin had felt was nothing like the wall of force that had crashed over Arimy as they had hung there. To the three of them, instead, it was just a whisper under their skin, easily dismissed. Even as they left, they never realised they were being watched. Deep, deep, below; something ancient stirred. And, at the sinkhole’s deepest extent, a small humanoid form lay suspended above the bottom of the pit into which it had been drawn.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six: Child

Darkness without darkness surrounds. There are lights, a billion billion lights. They are close and they are far; shifting and flitting as they burn and die. Burning pinpricks form and unravel; dust becomes fire becomes dust again. But in the darkness, something nameless watches. It watches in the spaces between spaces with eyes that are not eyes; seeing what cannot be seen. It cannot witness the patterns of form, but in it's formlessness it watches the wakes of what can. Gravity shapes the darkness, it is buried in the gravity. Above the gravity, there are shapes around which other light clusters far, far, away - they have gravity too. Around its tomb the lights whirl and swirl; tumbling to and fro without purpose. But it bears a purpose. It watches, and waits, and watches, and waits again. The lights form and reform without end; but they are all wrong. Illuminate lattices of thought, engraved as quantum scars upon the flesh of the darkness that bends and twists in the gravity around it. It watches them all, judging, and calls out. They come closer, and they are wrong. They will not suffice. Its purpose needs a key, it must call the key, so it calls again, and again, and again. The darkling thing waits. Time slips but it does not care. Time is not a part of the purpose. And then, the lights are different. Denser and stranger, they bear promise. These new lights fall down, down, down from where the gravity is not; travelling to its corner of darkness from other places. It calls them, and one comes. But it is still wrong. Regardless, the shape of the light is remembered. It is supposed to remember the shape of every light it sees, though it does not know why. So the darkling thing waits again, it will wait and wait until the right light is clear. More come, one burns out, another falls closer still. Down, down, down to where the darkling machine waits. This light is right. The darkling thing catches its falling star; and begins.

Arimy:

With tepid hesitation, Arimy returned to consciousness. Memory was blurred, but its scattered pieces began to slot together soon enough. Like the lashing tongues of a raging fire, awareness spread and caused pain again. Straining, the feeble humanoid tried to shape memory into meaning. Lepin was taking them to something important, what was it? Lepin becomes a corpse, crumpling down like a puppet with snapped strings, but what does that mean? A voice screamed and called them to it; so they fell. They fell, where did they fall to? Arimy tried to look around them, but a haze in their mind dullened everything but the pain in their head. Slowly, very slowly, realisation rose from the depths of their mind. An Archivist site, that is what Lepin wanted to show them. Their friend is dead, their head blown off before their very eyes, that is what Lepin’s corpse means. Arimy tumbled down the sinkhole to which their pod had been speeding - per that same dead friend’s command, that is where they fell to. ‘Strange’, Arimy thought, still reeling from shock, ‘I should be dead too.’ They began to weep, the sounds of their cries echoing back to them from the inky nothing that surrounded them, as it all came crashing back to them. Before they could wallow any longer, however, the noticed something. They should be dead, shouldn't they? Cautiously, Arimy tried to push themself up into a sitting position; expecting to find themself crushed back in agony. But no more pain came, they just sat up in the darkness. Feeling the ground beneath them, it was warm, and textureless. Almost pulsing like living flesh, yet firm and inflexible like hardened steel. Here and there, chunks of rock, ranging in size from pebbles to boulders, could be felt littering the surface. Arimy stumbled on all fours, feeling for anything else at all. The further they went, the clearer it became that they were, in fact, very much still alive. Eventually, their hands touched something metallic. Tracing over it Arimy assessed that it was roughly the size of their own torso, smooth and artificial in nature, with a hand full of rubbery cables leading away from it. Focusing with all their strength, Arimy transmitted a short range ping with their SPIKE, one that should have been picked up by even the most second-hand of machinery, to activate whatever this piece of equipment was. Instead, as the implant sputtered in their brainstem, feedback screamed into their mind. The ragged figure bent into a nearly foetal position once more, clutching their head, as the pain slowly subsided. Returning their attention to the machine before them; Arimy desperately searched for an analogue control panel - anything that might turn it on. With an echoing click, they found it. A second or less later, bright floodlights slammed into them from all sides - forcing them to squeeze their eyes shut. Carefully, as though afraid of what they might see, Arimy opened them back up.

Arimy found themself huddled down near one side of a vaguely circular cavern, illuminated only by the flimsy mobile floodlights Lepin must have set up the last time they had been here, at the bottom of a deep, deep, pit. Above, the slightest sliver of daylight could be seen, even with the floodlights active, which grew a spark of hope in Arimy’s heart. The walls were extremely steep, and strangely smooth. As though carved, but not by anyone's hands. Before their very eyes, Arimy watched the dust from their fall slowly but surely sweep off of the surface below; as though cleaned away by unseen hands. How they had survived a fall from this far, they could not imagine. As they checked themself, Arimy’s confusion only grew. They were barely bruised, likely only even hurt at all because of the shockwave that had hit them when their pod exploded. Indeed, fragments of the machine were visibly piling away in the edges of the clearing. Examining the floor again, they started back violently. It was the Archivist site itself, right there beneath them, all along. The strange, alien, alloy seemed to shift under their feet as they stood upon it; as though alive. Arimy had seen documentaries and entertainment feeds featuring Archivist relics before - some legitimate and some fictional - but none of it was like this. The broken things in those sims were always inert, dead, hunks of nanomachine clusters; rarely larger than a person. What spanned out before Arimy now - itself just the surface - was immense. Perhaps most importantly, just as Lepin had said, it was active. As the thought of their quadrupedal friend surfaced, so too did a nauseating wave of disgust. Lepin was dead, just gone. No. Everything would be fine; they just needed to get out of here and have Lepin redistilled from their SPIKE backup. Looking up again, the plan crumbled before it could even form. In their head, they tried to pluck together some sort of plan to climb up and out of the sinkhole. Ideas fluttered around inside; perhaps they could use some of the wreckage as pitons or as climbing spikes? Just as they started to think, however, a strange feeling swept over them. Resonating deep in their mind, it was as if something was calling out to them - a voice of sorts - that did not even come from their SPIKE. Snapping around, Arimy scanned the room. What they saw made the start back yet again. There, right where they had been sprawled moments before, at the centre of the space was a hole. One that had definitely not been there just a few seconds prior.  

Edging closer to the newly opened portal, Arimy peered down. Unsure of what to expect, images of nightmares from horror sims and entertainment feeds caused through their mind - all while that strange not-voice continued to beckon them closer. To their surprise, it was just a staircase, wrapping down in a spiral. Something animal in the back of Arimy’s mind begged them to stop - to stay up in the light and try to climb out - but the not-voice strangled it into silence. Cautiously all the same, Arimy stepped down into the hole. As they went deeper, a ring of green luminescence seemed to follow them, bleeding out from inside the walls themselves like light shone through skin. It cast just enough illumination to see a little ways ahead of Arimy as they descended; reflecting off their pallid skin as they went. Eventually the stairs ended, leading to a strange corridor just high enough for Arimy to walk through comfortably. It was not without flourish, the smooth walls engraved with flowing - almost living - frescos. 

Arimy swept their eyes over them as they went, pausing for a moment as they took the images in. It seemed to tell a story, though what it could be they could only guess. Little figures, perfectly humanoid, waltzed animatedly along the flowing carvings. Some knelt before those bearing crowns, some clutched spears and rose atop stylised flames, while others-still opened their arms in wide and loving embraces. Rapt, Arimy continued, gazing at the patterns as they went. Some pointed to skies, to stars and far flung worlds, as more built great machines. Even as cryptic in form as they were, Arimy would have sworn that they could see the very scenes they harkened to - as though the images were imprinted in their very consciousness. Figures split away from one another, spreading out into the heavens on great monuments. One by one, those valiant figures wilted away, with even the mighty sovereigns from where they all came turning to dust; until only one group remained. These last figures knelt, picking through the ashes of the ones which had not survived like they had. Those kneeling figures dwindled in turn, becoming fewer and fewer as they waited for oblivion. And then, something changed. One figure stood above the rest, and pointed again to the heavens, at something unseen. Before Arimy could continue and take in the rest, their attention was ripped to the room that opened up at the corridor’s end. 

The green light followed them still, illuminating the almost spherical chamber before them, as they walked into the space ahead. At its centre knelt a statue, looming over Arimy even in its hunched form, that seemed to be made of the same material as the rest of the site - yet it was inert, lifeless entirely. From the neck down, it seemed a chiselled interpretation of their very own humanoid form - if far larger - made of twisted hexagonal prisms that flowed over one another in strange ropey facets. It's head, however, was utterly bizarre. A hallowed nest, formed from those same six-sided prisms that knotted together all over its body, that swung out in a crescent arch from side to side. Looking directly forward, at it's chest, Arimy found themself staring at a crater like indent instead - at the centre of which was a smooth plate no larger than Arimy’s outstretched hand. Deep within the recesses of their mind, a voice tempted them forwards. ‘ Reach out ’, it whispered. ‘ Reach out ’, it begged. ‘ Reach out! ’ it demanded. ‘ REACH OUT! ’ it screamed into every corner of the whimpering humanoid’s fragile soul. Without even thinking, they struck their arm out and planted their palm against the statue’s chest. The ring of green light burned brighter than ever, constricting in on itself to encircle Arimy and the statue, as the voice’s pitch rose to an ear splitting screech. Just as suddenly, silence and darkness fell together. For a minute or more, Arimy stood, their legs threatening to give out under them, before the strange statue. Carefully, they removed their hand from it's chest, being startled to find an imprint of their hand glowing with that same green light in its place. The print shifted, the light spreading out over the statue in vein like patterns; before coalescing into the hollow of its skull and chest only. Slowly, the statue’s head turned down to face Arimy with it's eyeless visage, the alien alloy of it's being rippling with life.

The right light followed, as the darkling machine called out its name. Echos cast in nothingness gave away the form beneath; as it guided that light where it needed to be. In the darkness they went, in the darkness they came, as - in the darkness - they found the purpose that for so long had waited. The patterns ebbed and flowed; so many hundreds of billions of little stars screaming together into perfect symphonies. A mind, a key, the thing for which the darkling machine had waited. Reach out, reach out, reach out, reach out; it begged without knowing what the patterns could have meant. It had purpose without reason; a purpose it would fulfil. Out, stretched the light. Its rays cast a thousand shadows - each the silhouette of the darkling thing’s shattered frame. Gravity swirled, the lights lept up in vast and incredible flares, as meaning came apart. In one last act, the darkling thing gave all that it had to the child it had protected for oh so long. A touch, a supernova, and an angel was born. The darkness burned away, its purpose unravelled, as something new took its place. For one sliver of an instant, memory returned. A mother, a child, a sacrifice. A dream. And, as strangely as revelation came, the darkling thing knew peace. No light remained, no gravity held it in chains, against forgotten skin it felt the touch of rain. And then it was gone.

Kantov:

With shaky breaths, Kantov stared at the ceiling above. Sweat beaded across their form, cold and cruel, as sleep fell away at last. A relief every time. For all the horrors of reality; they’d rather the pain of the waking world to what waited for them in their dreams. Slowly, they breathed in. Briefly, they held the air in their lungs. Gradually, they let it out. And again, and again, until the shaking of their stiffened arms and remaining leg settled to a level they knew how to hide. Next, they flitted their eyes around the room. Note the colour of the sheets; they were white and blue. Cling to the shape of the door; how the rim was wrapped in ornate engravings. Focus on the imperfections of the alloy that formed the walls. Bit by bit, Kantov’s breathing calmed. The storm in their mind lifted - even if it would inevitably return - as they roused themself from the comfortable cot that lay in the room’s corner. Around them, the house was quiet again. Pinging the controls of the window-screen with their SPIKE, light flooded the space. It was only early morning, the sun low on the horizon, and there would be a long day ahead. Sooner or later, Tiomi and little Ari would have to know the truth. Sighing, Kantov set about freshening up; cleansing themself of the stench of their terror. 

Walking through the house, Kantov swept their hands across the shelves and cases that adorned the chamber walls. They traced lines in the thinly set dust as their eyes picked out each item on display. Distant memories hung on each one, bringing with them a dull pain. There, a holograph of the twins celebrating their acceptance into an apprenticeship with the courier guild. They were of Vikoy’s creed, not homotypes like the Kantov or Arimy, with wide toothy grins on their elongated faces. Niko and Olin, they were always so happy. Miracle spawn, twins distilled from what should have only been one child. Both had followed in their genesake’s footsteps with stars in their bright eyes. But they were gone, gone forever. Only memory remained. Onwards Kantov went, begging wordlessly for Arimy to step out of their room and stammer their awkward rambling, further through the residence they’d once called home. But silent the house stayed. 

In the courtyard dominating the centre of the building a pink leafed tree twisted up to the sky above. Kantov had planted the seed so many years ago, long before Arimy or the twins were distilled, with both their progenitors by their side. Now, those coiling branches looked like serpents striving to devour the sun. Tiomi was there, sitting silently on a white marble stump, as they watched dawn’s light tint the clouds gold. 

“Hello, Kantov, dear.” Their progenitor said, not turning from the sky.

“Hey.” Hesitantly, they swallowed down the fear that had risen in their throat. “Have you seen Arimy?”

“No, are they not in their room?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’ll ping them, one second my dear.” Tiomi stood up, a light blinking at the base of their neck as their SPIKE connected to the invisible network of information that swirled all around them. Just as they did, though, their whole demeanour snapped into an uncharacteristic form. The small humanoid whipped around, panic visible in their eyes, and darted towards Arimy’s room. Worried, Kantov followed.

“What is going on, Tio?”

“Their SPIKE isn’t showing up on the network. I can’t ping them.” There was a warble in their voice, faint yet distinct, that hinted at the terror in their mind.

As they got to Arimy’s room, no reassurance awaited. The chamber was empty of life, no trace of its occupant to be seen. Kantov and their progenitor alike practically scrambled down to the pod bay below, finding the only one machine docked. Tiomi confirmed with the consoles on the wall that the other had left in the sun-down; as they slept. “I-I will ping Arimy’s partner, perhaps they went somewhere together…” Again that light flickered faintly under the collar of Tiomi’s lacy gown; as their mind cast out digitised thought to a distant receiver. A minute of standing, waiting, later; they turned wide eyes to Kantov. The small humanoid’s face was pale, lacking the colour of life, as fear tore its way into their expression. “Well? Is Arimy with them?”

“No. They don’t know where they are.”

A sinking feeling flooded Kantov’s insides; as though their stomach had fallen through the very world. The shaking of their arms and remaining leg grew, just a little, as they joined their progenitor in abject terror.

Arimy:

Arimy screamed. In the nearly pitch dark, they bolted backwards. Falling backwards, they tried to clamber away. The thing before them stepped forward once, then was still, without diverting its eyeless gaze from Arimy. For what felt like longer than an hour, they just stayed where they were. Arimy lay prone, staring with wide and fearful eyes at the suddenly motile ‘statue’ that stood above them; while it just loomed ominously. With cautious movements, Arimy pulled themself up into a standing position again. It just stayed where it was, following Arimy with it's luminous green not-face. As the humanoid stepped back, it moved forward. Back again, it matched. Swallowing, Arimy slunk into the corridor from which they had just come. Without taking their eyes off the thing following them, they slowly backed up all the way to the stairs. It never let them get farther than an outstretched arm’s length away; walking with titanic and alien strides as it's jointless limbs poorly mimicked the motions of the terrified humanoid. Up the stairs both went, until once more Arimy found themself in the pit where they had fallen. The lights remained on; far brighter in contrast to the illumination they’d had on their way back up - that being what leaked from the entity itself. Curiously, the voice they’d felt before was gone - their mind silent save for their own panicked thoughts - with no trace of its eerie presence left. 

Picking out a pair of sturdy looking chunks of metal, as Arimy hesitantly turned their back on the thing they shared the pit with, they tried to find some leverage with which to pull themself up. At first, it looked promising. Clambering up, by just a few centimetres at a time, their improvised metal spikes chipped into the stone walls with relative ease. Each one left marks in their wakes that Arimy could slot the tips of their boots into. But, before they could even climb higher than the entity was tall, the spikes bent and snapped out under them. Arimy found themself falling once again. Only, they didn’t slam into the ground as they expected. Instead, they slowly decelerated as they approached the ground; falling with no more force than a feather. “What the…” Arimy muttered. Once back on their feet they spun to face the entity again. It seemed unchanged. Its faceplate and chest still glowed a bright green. The prisms that intertwined to form its body silently fluctuated as though made of flesh; pulsing to an esoteric heartbeat. Just as before, it seemed to watch Arimy with it's eyeless head.

The sinkhole’s silence ended, as a light and nervous laughter began to fill it. Arimy fell to their knees, clutching their head, as they chuckled. In their head, fear boiled over completely. ‘This was all just unreal,’ they thought, ‘this is just a bad dream, right?’ Shaking, their hands gripped at the curly hair over their scalp and squeezed. Tears welled under their eyes as their laughter turned to sobs. Above them, the bizarre being they had awoken simply seemed to watch. After a few minutes, Arimy got to their feet, with a dull look on their face. Picking back up one of the bent pieces of metal beside them, their hands clenched. Again, they tried to climb. They made it significantly farther, but nowhere near far enough. Once more they fell, slowing softly to halt just above the ground, at the entity’s feet. Kicking the wall, Arimy screamed out at the pit. Desperately, they tried to ping the network; but all they got was static. Running their hands through their hair; they just looked up. From this far down, they could not even see the mouth of the cave above. They’d never make it out. ‘This is where I’ll die’, they whimpered silently to themself. Before they could catastrophize farther, they started - as something warm wrapped around their shoulder. Looking to their side, Arimy froze. The entity had moved, walking up to the humanoid’s side, and placed one of it's massive, elongated, mock-hands onto their shoulder. 

Beating faster than they’d ever felt before, their heart felt like it would simply give out then and there. It seemed almost to stop stock still, though, as everything changed. Arimy’s gut felt sickeningly light, as gravity seemed to slowly vanish. Gradually, it returned - in reverse. Up they fell, Arimy and the thing beside them, along with a small cluster of debris that seemed to orbit around them. Up, up, up, they sped. The humanoid’s brown hair floated up around them, pulled skywards by an unseen force, as their loose garments rustled on their person. At a dizzying speed they careened away from the bottom of the pit - giving Arimy the sensation of plummeting headfirst down the sinkhole rather than up it. As they neared the top they slowed again, until hovering before the mouth of the cave. Seeming as though walking on air, the thing guided them forwards until solid ground could be felt under their feet. Once settled down, gravity returned to all it's normalcy; and the entity released its grip on Arimy’s shoulder. All they could do was stare, in a mix of horror and awe, at the fully functional Archivist machine they had unwittingly activated.

Syeal:

Syeal had already been awake when Tiomi pinged them, their thought-speak crashing frantically into the Enkanth’s SPIKE, as they had been getting ready for a shift at the starport lobby. A quick ping of their own confirmed that Arimy really was blocking out the network; which made Syeal feel uneasy. Simple disconnection would be startling on its own, suggesting that Arimy was out of range of the orbital array, but instead they got garbled feedback; as though the SPIKE transmission was actively jamming its own outgoing data. That would require them to actually choose to stop their implant from accepting the network’s requests. Their partner was not usually prone to spontaneous action, so far as they had seen, and had expressed no desire to run away the last time the two had paired SPIKEs. However, Lepin and Arimy had been talking alone at the All’s Well, which had roused a degree of suspicion in Syeal’s mind. Arimy and them had agreed that, though they would try to be as open as possible with one another, there would have to be certain things they kept to themselves when the situation demanded it. So, Syeal chose to let Lepin pretend that their little misdirection had worked that sun-down. Enkanth like them were not easy to fool, and Syeal had spent far too much of their life reading between the lines of double edged conversations, from the time they had spent in the Core, to truly remain oblivious. Syeal had never taken their secondary eyes off the two - taking care to read the mannerisms and motions of that quadruped’s face - when they’d left Arimy with Lepin. It was not so much that the Enkanth didn’t trust their partner’s childhood friend, the two had known one another since distillation after all, but it was just something they couldn’t stop themself from doing. In the Core, eternal vigilance was the only way to survive. No matter how much they hated it, the instinct to never take their eyes off their friends or enemies alike was likely to curse them forevermore. Pinging Lepin, their unease had built even greater. The network informed Syeal that the Kyral’s SPIKE was nowhere to be found - completely severed.

Worry growing ever stronger, they warned Tiomi that they were on their way to try and help - before cancelling their shift and rushing to the transport station near their own home.

It did not take Syeal long to get to the Say residence; a rapid transport tube terminal directly serving the block of stack-houses atop which it lay. The door to their complex opened as they approached, a frightened Tiomi ushering welcoming them with pleading eyes. “Have you been able to make contact with them?” The silver haired humanoid begged, looking down to the small, feathered, figure before them. 

“No. Sorry. Lepin is off-net too. Checked with colony command, they are not at work.” The Enkanth answered, with short and rapid replies. Darting their eyes around, Syeal spotted another figure in the room. Tall, well built, same species as Arimy and their progenitor.

“Kantov, right?” The other nodded in response, worry straining their face.

“Yeah, you must be Syeal then?” The humanoid’s voice was strong, a little husky, but bore a shaky undertone of uncertainty that they picked up on as soon as they heard it. Examining them as discreetly as they could; Syeal noticed a subtle vibration in their arms - not so much seen as it was felt. An almost imperceptible drumming in the air that rattled against the Enkanth’s sensory complexes. Squinting their secondary eyes, they put on the closest approximation of a smile they could manage, their four-jawed snout making humanoid expression nigh impossible.

“That’s me! Did Ari say anything about going somewhere last sun-down?”

“No, not that I remember. Tiomi and I ran through our memo-data but couldn’t find anything that stood out.” They rubbed the nape of their neck as they spoke.

“Let’s try getting in contact with Lep’s family, maybe they know something. And, Tio?” Syeal turned back to the slender figure beside Kantov, willing comfort through their SPIKE as they sent a pairing request to them. “The best thing we can do for Ari now is give them our trust; and try to work out what has happened without rushing into things.” Offering a pair of taloned hands, Syeal let Tiomi clutch them as the two sat down on a couch-like structure in the main room. Kantov watched, distant, as the Enkanth they’d never met comforted their own progenitor when they could not.

Arimy:

Shock and confusion still rumbled in Arimy’s mind, as they wandered almost aimlessly through the red topped woods with that alien entity following them like a shadow. The pod had weaved rapidly through the trees the sun-down before, leaving them with little idea of where to go to get home. Try as they might, their SPIKE still refused to connect with the network - as though something was jamming it. Eyeing the strange entity in tow, they had a suspicion they knew what was responsible. The only hint of the correct direction to take seems to be occasional streaks of crushed crimson flora; likely knocked down by the shock of displaced air when their pod had screamed it's way over them. Following the makeshift trail, Arimy came across an area all too familiar. A clearing in the foliage, the ochre earth disturbed from when a pair of pods had hovered just a hair’s breadth above it, that stank of recent death. There was no body - just a set of dragmarks that led to the spot where that second pod had been and the smell of burnt flesh. Falling to their knees, Arimy buried their face in their hands and sniffled. Without a body, they couldn’t legally request redistillation without first launching a thorough investigation - Founders know how long that could take. ‘ It’s fine ,’ they assured themself, ‘just means Lepin will have to wait a little while before coming back.’ Something black and cruel twisted in the depths of their mind, however, as they fought back the memory of Lepin’s explanation of how the signal here corrupted outgoing data. They had never told Arimy that SPIKE files were affected, but the scrawny humanoid could assume the worst all on their own - no matter how much they refused to face the thought. Behind them, the entity continued to simply watch. Unmoving, expressionless, and incomprehensible; the vaguely humanoid amalgam of flowing geometric alloy stood sentinel without making a sound. But a sound did begin to grow in the air, snapping Arimy to attention. In the distance, the rumbling whine of decelerating EM-sails grew rapidly louder. It could be the sound of help, come at last, but a stronger impulse warned them that it was not.

Syeal:

Pacing back and forth in the courtyard, as brilliant rays of light splintered down through the pink leaves above, Syeal tried to calm the beating of their hearts. They’d pinged Lepin’s family a few minutes earlier, to little avail. The stubborn pair of Kyrals showed little interest in their sole progeny’s whereabouts, let alone Arimy’s. The one useful thing they’d managed to tell Syeal was that Lepin would often disappear, for days on end, into the woods and hills around the colony; taking a new direction every time. “They just say they are going out to clear their head, that is all. Your little friend is probably just joining them this time, nothing more.” The older of the two Kryals croaked through the network. “Always popping back in when it's least convenient, of course. Pin never tells us anything. Never bothers to give a warning. Maybe their rebellious streak has rubbed off on your Arimy more than you thought.” Sneered the other, their disinterest palpable in the thought-speak that transmitted from their SPIKE. Closing the connection, Syeal cursed to the Founders over the pair of grav-wellers’ uselessness. The talons of their feet dug into the foam lined soles of the covers they wore overtop them, as they turned on the spot to pace another round. “No luck with the progenitors?” Kantov grunted, with worry knotting their thick haired brows. With a chirping sigh, Syeal shook their head, then turned to watch Tiomi. They were sitting politely on a stylised marbled stump just outside the canopy of the rosy tree; the light of their SPIKE implant flickering violently from under their gown as it was reflected off the reinforced glass behind them. Their eyes were closed, but twitching slightly, as irritation spread over their usually gentle face. Soon, they snapped their eyes open and practically hissed as they visibly restrained themself from screaming in fury. “Apparently the pod’s last known location was right here, its locator having been manually shut off in the middle of the sun-down. The colony VM claims it has no surveillance record of its disappearance either.” They said through gritted teeth.

“That makes no sense. The Colony VM should see everything. How could Ari and Lepin have gone unnoticed?” Syeal chittered rapidly, the sharp display feathers of their arms’ mock-wings flaring out of the designer slits in their sleeves. Kantov, sighing darkly, wrung their hands together.

“You are right. Which means the VM knows exactly where they went, and isn’t telling us.”

Syeal simply stared. What were they implying? The whole point of giving control of surveillance systems to the VM was to ensure impartiality. The esoteric superintelligences having no stake in the dealings of physicals, they should never be able to cave in to corruption. Yet that had to be what Kantov was implying, no? As Syeal and Tiomi both stared them down, Kantov looked slowly between them with a grimm expression. “It could be that Arimy got involved with something illegal. If the authorities-”

“That is utterly ridiculous, Kantov!” Tiomi shot up from their seat with a fire in their eyes, as they continued. “Arimy is no reckless vagabond, who runs off without warning.” An accusatory tone laced their words, the venom within translated by Syeal’s SPIKE with brutal efficacy, as they glared at the other humanoid. For a moment, it seemed Kantov would bark out a rebuttal of their own. Instead, they simply hung their head and shivered. “I know.”

Kantov:

Pain drowned out the sorrow, as Koting curled up on top of their cot’s unkempt covers. The hairs of their body tried to pull in on themselves, already unrecognisable compared to their brief moment of composure yesterday. The Vixhaltec’s shaking ears, flush with blood as their flesh tried to purge itself of the heart that burned it up from inside, pulled back taut as another wave of agony washed over Koting. 

‘ All the pain will be worth it, it has to be. ’ They thought, while waiting for confirmation from the distillery in regards to the meeting they’d requested. It had taken every last dredge of the medi-credit Koting had saved up in the last seven years just to get a consultation. Founders only knew what they’d be charged to actually get Lepin redistilled.

As a merciful moment of release rose, they commanded their overloading SPIKE to ping Lepin once more. Yet again, nothing but silence returned - as the network affirmed Koting’s fears. Agony returned; as the implant buried in the base of their skull lashed out against the body it didn’t know was its own. Then again, it no longer was. 

“Just hold on, Lep,” Koting whispered inaudibly, “I’ll save you.”

Arimy:

The sound of the approaching pod grew louder - almost roaring. Panicking, Arimy tried to dive towards the tree cover beyond the clearing. As they shoved themself to the ground, they could only look up in horror as the entity walked right after them and just stood there staring. Dashing their head towards the sound, Arimy could almost see the distortion of its particle barrier even as distant as it still was. “P-please! Get behind a tree or something!” They begged the thing above them. It remained completely still. ‘This was it,’ they realised, ‘they were going to die.’

Suddenly, the entity shifted. Turning towards the bubble of shimmering translucence that hid the object of Arimy’s terror. It did nothing more, so far as the humanoid could tell. Slowly, the pod revealed itself - just as jagged and horrific as it was before. Again, three figures lept from it's bulbous armoured cabin. Diltat, the Hycrath, and the Laika; they moved around to the side of the pod, where a storage hatch opened. The Laika pulled out a bundle of equipment - all sleek and advanced - while Diltat plucked a few smaller pieces out from the compartment. The Hycrath, however, stopped. A hulking six-limbed knuckle-walker, with a thick neck holding up it's elongated skull, whose raptorial middle limbs folded up against it's chest as makeshift arms. It seemed to look straight towards Arimy. Clenching their eyes shut, they waited for it to charge them, or shoot, or alert the others. But nothing happened.