New info - posted today, Friday. These instructions include a simple explanation that should do the trick, if repeated enough. And I don't know how much "enough" is yet

Hey everyone, I'm new to reddit, and I'm not very organized with this yet, so things are a bit mishmashed, and this is not a comprehensive walk-through or anything. I stumbled into how to literally begin dominating Inside Track racing just exactly opposite of I how never began dominating the blackjack table by counting cards. I'm still trying to piece together exactly what I did.
Read the the bulleted list for my most concise instructions so far.
I don't really know where to post it when I have an update on a concept, but I think I figured out something last night on the AI horse racer behavior. I think some of them might be more likely to cause trouble if no one ever bets on them. I'm not kidding. Think about getting picked last for sports and shit in high school. That shit stung sometimes, and if ever a game company were to adapt such a sad recollection about growing up a wimp into a gambling game, well, I think Rockstar would be the company to do it. I'm really starting to think this might be the actual in-game reason why winning streaks completely go to hell.
Sounds really bizarre, right? The game starts to reveal some strange dynamics in this horse racing game, and I'm not mentioning more yet because they are really fucking strange and this sounds weird enough as it it. But the idea is that, if you understand the dynamics, you can dominate the game, like counting cards for blackjack.
I hope some of you can trigger it on your own. Half of the awesomeness was how I spent all day confused as shit as to what was happening with my game.
Some people have asked me if I was high when this happened. My answer is yes, and that's probably the reason this is so disorganized and I'm still trying to figure out what really triggered the story sequence.

• If I were to speculate at what is probably critical to triggering this, it was probably running enough red races, betting on a different racer each time, to be able to accurately predict some number or percentage of the blue race outcomes.
• When I say predict, I don't mean the normal odds you're given. I mean the game will already have tentatively selected the racer, and the additional information on betting amounts will be showing too. It's still not a guaranteed 100%, but I almost never see it lose at this point.
• To make this happen, sit down at the racing terminal. Start running red races one after another until there is about 1 minute - 1 minute 30 left before the next blue race starts. In each of these red races, bet on a different person for a small amount. I usually did $300 or so, I think. If you've bet on enough different drivers in the red races, the game will have quietly compiled more accurate predictions for the blue races.
• If you repeat this enough, the game will start to get ridiculous.

Try to start with a lot more than 20,000 in chips. It's pretty stuff to stay afloat in the game for a long time. Only being able to buy 20,000 at a time and 40,000 in a day could make it difficult, because I think winning a certain number of races over a couple days could be a factor in triggering the story sequence.
This isn't really even about gambling. This is about fixing races. And hell, isn't that what we should have been expecting in a game like this? Because when it took Rockstar something like 5 years to design a casino with fewer card playing options than Windows 3.1, I really started to wonder what the fuck happened to this company. This is a pretty deep and involved process, and it opens up some new content (not sure what, haven't gotten that far yet).

I posted all this stuff below here last night. It's confusing and scattered. Everything you just read was posted to today, and it's probably clearer and easier to understand. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that.

Updated clearer instructions further down. Less clear instructions at the top because part of me wanted you guys to be as confused as I was for a while after the story sequence was triggered.

You have to play through the group interface version of the race betting. Forget trying to figure out the odds. Bet on anyone, pay no attention to the odds whatsoever, but bet the minimal amounts. The key is to stay in the game as long as possible. You're about to find out the truth about this, and it's the greatest thing I've ever seen in a video game. You'll start hearing voices with goofy accents saying weird things in between races. The game will start autoselecting winners on some races, and these nearly always win, so go ahead and increase those bets. BUT ONLY THOSE BETS. Bet $100 to $500 on everything else. Do this until you've made six figures on at least two occasions. That's what I did. That's when it triggered the most awesome and bewildering story thing I've ever seen. I believe you have to win money through this approach, and do it multiple times to trigger the story instance.
Rockstar rigged horse racing on purpose, and it's freaking funny as hell once you get the joke. And stupidly lucrative. Forget the odds for now because they're all wrong.
I purposefully kept this free of spoilers. It took me all afternoon to make sense of how the game changed. Eventually odds will matter again, but not until you've heard hours the funniest dialogue in a video game.
Let me emphasize this, when you bet on people on the small individual races, bet $100 to $500 dollars, and pay no attention to the odds. Bet on any and all of them, and don't expect to win those races. Those odds are rigged. Just don't run out of money until you suddenly find yourself winning a lot. The races on the left are the ones that matter, and always increase the bets on those when the game begins to autoselect winners. And JUST TRY TO STAY IN THE GAME until you've mysteriously amassed 100k to 400k.
That's as best I can understand what happened to me. Stumbled into this completely on accident.
Winning a couple hundred I guess the biggest things I can say are to hit as many of both of the red and blue races,thousand on a couple occasions of doing it this way should trigger a story sequence. It did for me, because gambling bosses don't like it when people stumble into their secrets.

Ok, in my excitement, and perhaps desire for you all to appreciate the confusion I experienced all afternoon, I might not have written the clearest instructions. I hope this helps

So when you start horse racing, you either do "racing with everybody" or "racing by yourself". Pick the "racing with everybody". As you play, you'll bet on races that take place on the small screen and a smaller number of races that take place on the big screen. Don't focus on trying to make money of the races on the small screen. Always bet very small amounts on those races, and try to bet on names you haven't bet on before. When you bet on them, because some of them are criminals, they will outperform their odds or commit other crimes. You're not trying to win on them, you're trying to find out if they're lying about their abilities and going to throw the race (the next upcoming race on the big screen).
Now, these small screen races are really like the qualifying rounds to the big screen races that only run once every five minutes. As time goes on, as you keep doing it this way and betting on people randomly in the small screen races, the odds that you're given to work with when you set up a big screen race will become more accurate. Never bet on a big screen race more than 90 seconds before it's supposed to start. I just remembered, that's really important. So...
Never bet on a big screen race more than 90 seconds before it's supposed to start! Bet on as many little races as you can before that, always betting on a different racer. Finding out who the criminals among the racers are can lead to the game sometimes even selecting the winner for you in those races.
Other stuff to keep in mind I don't know how it works exactly by doing it this way before the story sequence is triggered. I assume it's the same, because this is the method that the story sequence makes you figure out.
Don't cash in your chips in between sessions, even if you've got 100k accumulated. It takes too long to build up a pile, and you need chips to throw away on ferreting out the criminals.
Beyond just ferreting out criminals, I think it is also a matter of keeping the athletes happy with you. I'm pretty sure the nun sabatoged a race on me because I never gave her any money through bets.
Some known criminals, etc "Feed the Trolls" is a criminal. "Snatched your Mama" I mean, this was staring us in the face. Always vote the max when "Robocall" is the top favored racer, I've found - the logic, I assume, is that you can't defeat Robocalls, you can only hang up.
Sometimes a criminal will win the big screen race, and Robocall will be favored to win the next race. Apparently this is because of all the robocalls being made in the aftermath of a scandal.
Sometimes, if you're playing with a controller, you've just filled out the bet screen for the big race, and the controller won't move the selection over to the other open race, and you have to use the mouse. Something tells me this is intentional. These other races almost always have extremely accurate information or very shady circumstances and you can often max out your bet on them.
I believe that the money you spend betting on, say, "Feed the Trolls" acts as a an ongoing bribe, because then there will be times that the game will let you use those criminals to your own ends. I'd left this bit out until now because it was so cool to figure this shit out for myself.
Important thing I think I might be right about but am not really sure because I'm trying it from scratch with a new character Definitely bet on the shady sounding names in the small races, and the racers with high odds. By expecting to lose in the small screen races, it at least feels like I'm already getting more reliable results in the big screen races.

I'm trying to get back into the groove I unfortunately lost but it's rather slow going. I'm feeling my way back into what I had planned and unfortunately this wasn't really the ideal chapter for it. Still, I hope I clustered the right words together and that it all feels right!
So without further ado, please enjoy!
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Chapter 1
Chapter 25
“The F.V.S. is lost. There’s no denying that now. I don’t care what the other loyalists claim, we can’t manage to survive this war, let alone win it, and break up the Pact at the same time. It’s not feasible. In fact if things maintain their current trend I’m not sure the Pact will survive on its own anyway. Forget Ragnarok. We need Phoenix. CC I’m sending you a packet of info in a warbot and I hope it makes it to you. I’ve organized a deal with the Pact. We’re just the science team, we’re not responsible for this, and that’s the story you need to give them too. If we turn over a few outliers and some execs they’ll give us immunity. However if we play this right we can integrate Phoenix into the Pact as a contingency. So bring over your official Goliath Serum data and turn yourself in. Look for a new organization they’re calling Titan, talk to an Agent Alvarez, and he’ll bring you in. I’ve got the bot keyed into a few passphrases so I’m just hoping you’ll mention one of them and get this recording. If not… Well I hope you’ll get my other messages. I hope to see you soon as we get out of this damn city.”
Jaeger turned off the recording being played from Bertha’s diagnostics screen. Kasia Jordan’s dark face fading away as he did. She’d been in charge of one of the bot R&D divisions. “Had you made contact with CC before I found you?” Jaeger asked Bertha directly then.
“Unknown.” Bertha replied. Jaeger wasn’t too surprised at that. When he’d found her she’d been on a somewhat erratic patrol route in the city and heavily damaged. He’d been able to restore her but he had no idea how many days or weeks of logs had been overwritten in her state. He took a look at her diagnostics screen once more to check admin logs. Kasia had input several of the science team personnel in as level zero admins. Then the next update was Bertha updating Jaeger’s clearance to level zero just now. The diagnostics system had helpfully flagged the event as “aberrant.” Though it wasn’t outright dangerous as bots could adjust admin levels in certain situations.
It was still another thing he wanted to keep from Ham… “Do you have the info packet mentioned in the recording?” He asked next.
“Partial data file corruption. Accessing recovered data. Uploading.” Jaeger watched the terminal as he got a notification of Bertha uploading an encrypted file. Considering he was now a level zero admin she should have automatically unlocked it if she had the code. Which meant either she’d never been given the code or it had been lost. He looked around the bay a moment before grabbing a spare thumbdrive and plugging it in to copy over the file. He’d check with central to see if it was just standard encryption or not.
“Any other data regarding operation Phoenix?” He tried.
“Operation Phoenix objective: Ensure continuity of Void Government. Ensure continuity of command for Void intelligence assets. Ensure continuity of command for Void robotics assets. Addendum. Ensure key scientific personnel maintain preferential status in transitionary government structure. End objectives.” Jaeger slowly rubbed his chin as Bertha listed them off. That last one had to be something that Kasia added, or more likely her and a few others. But if that was the case why hadn’t it been activated? Or had it? If it had what was Marque looking for? Hopefully he’d get more information off the file.
“Alright Bertha. You did very well. Is there anything else? Or are you okay for me to unhook you?” He asked next, not seeing anything else he needed to do on the diagnostics.
“Designation Bertha confirms checklist status green.” Came the reply as he tapped on the terminal to start the procedure to unhook her and let her return to full functionality.
“Alright. Tex?” Jaeger looked around then and spotted the bot cleaning off the ketchup on the ground.
“What’s up Hoss?” The bot looked up as he scrubbed.
“Are you familiar with Project Phoenix?” He wasn’t sure what bots might know and which ones wouldn’t.
“Project Phoenix… Project Phoenix…” The Bot slowly tapped at its chin plate as if really contemplating the question. “Now… just to clarify do you already know or are you just askin’?”
“Tex.” Jaeger growled out.
“Just askin’ Hoss! Uh, all I know is it’s in place to maintain continuity of government, command of intelligence assets, and command of robotic assets. Knowledge of the project is restricted to level zero admins.” The bot replied then, which meant he hadn’t been updated with the final bit that Bertha had.
“Well I know I’m already a class zero admin with you. Further details?” Jaeger tried.
“That’s literally all I got Hoss.” The bot shrugged at him.
“Didn’t feel like telling me about it earlier?” Jaeger asked as he crossed his arms.
“I’m serious, that’s all I have. Four sentences and a code terminator.” Tex insisted. Jaeger hummed softly as the bot told him that. Code terminators were left in place so when a specific code was spoken a bot would delete all information regarding a particular topic. Why they had a code terminator for a four sentence list of mission objectives was rather odd but nothing beyond the usual security measures they had employed. Though he wondered why he’d never heard of it before.
“Alright… I’m going to go check on this. What about you two?” He looked over to Raven and Tanya who’d been watching quietly while he had pulled the information from Bertha.
“This one should get to bed.” Tanya mentioned with a head tilt at Raven.
“What? Now?!” She gasped out. “There’s all these things happening! You can’t possibly think I could go to sleep now can you?” She protested.
“It is late.” Jaeger agreed with a glance at his watch. He was certainly tired, but the ride on the back of the crab had kept him from getting as exhausted as he normally would have from a day like this. Though his leg would certainly slow him down. “I’m sure you’re curious so… I guess you can come with me to command so I can decrypt this. But after that you’ll need to go to bed. Okay?”
“Okay!” She agreed with a nod and a smile. Tanya gave him a look but he just shrugged it off. He wasn’t as hard up on bedtimes as some parents, especially because Raven and Max could just charge up during the day if they really needed. Jaeger’s life with the Revenants had never afforded him with a good sleep schedule.
“Make sure you clean up all the sauce Tex!” Jaeger added as the bot waved his hat at them.
“Sure thing Hoss! See y’all folks soon y’hear?” The bot bid them farewell as they headed out of the bot bay. Jaeger paused at the exit to check what bays were open and what were out on patrol. Brandy-Lynn or someone had upped their schedules to have more overlapping patrols. It would be a bit harder on maintenance but he would have made the same changes himself.
“So what do you think it is?” Raven asked as the three of them got into the lift to take them up into the central building.
“What? Phoenix? Hard to say. High command was… pretty paranoid even before the war. It could just be a reserve CIC program, or it could be some sort of data trove. The fact that the science team had access suggests it wasn’t reserved for military personnel only. Plus Kasia seemed to think it would be useful going forward. She was a bit of a wild card. She didn’t care much about the loyalist cause, or our own, just maintaining her lifestyle.” Jaeger mentioned as he rubbed his chin in thought.
“She was responsible for our Void tracing implants you know.” Tanya added. “And the program file Bertha had mentioned maintaining asset control. Maybe this has to do with keep track of all their various black site programs?”
“Could be.” Jaeger nodded in agreement. “If she could hand some of that over to Titan then they’d likely be pretty keen on cutting her a deal. But if she handed over everything… why not come for this compound? Why not hit Ham’s place? Or the museum?”
“Museum?” Tanya asked.
“Ah… the place I went with Ham and Raven. Didn’t I mention the sealed of synth exhibit?” Jaeger asked as he tried to remember if he’d told the others.
“Right.” Tanya nodded then. “I didn’t think of that as a museum but… I don’t know what to call it instead so… Museum will have to do.” She finally conceded with a shrug. “Though it’s a good question as to why they didn’t try and retake this place if some of the science team is working with Titan.”
“Maybe they arrested them for being the bad guys? I mean… why would they let them be free if they were doing all kinds of evil things? There’s got to be consequences for their actions even if they had all kinds of tech right?” As Raven asked that Tanya and Jaeger both looked down at her for a moment, then at each other.
“Oh you sweet summer child.” Tanya cooed softly and crouched down to give Raven a hug.
“What? That doesn’t answer anything!” Raven protested even as she hugged Tanya back. Jaeger meanwhile just chuckled. When the lift stopped they exited it to enter the security room in the command center of the compound.
“It would be nice Raven but… historical precedent isn’t in your favor.” Jaeger explained. He was about to go on but as they walked into the command center he trailed off as he saw Ham sitting at the main terminal.
“Hey Jaeger, I’m glad you’re here. The system is acting funky and I’ve been trying to reboot but it’s not letting me…” Ham mentioned as he saw another error message pop up.
“Back the fuck away from that!” Jaeger hissed out as the others looked at him in surprise. He rushed forward towards Ham and the Terminal then as the pilot quickly backed away, hands raised defensively.
“Whoa whoa whoa!” He gasped out as Jaeger bore down on him, but Jaeger just pushed him further back from the terminal and quickly leaned in to see what Ham had done. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem!? Don’t you ever fucking think for a second?!” Jaeger hissed out as he quickly undid Ham’s attempts to restart the system. “This is only a closed system because we jury rigged it at the end of the war remember! You reset this who knows how many systems will go down until it can connect with central! Not to mention all the memories in here! You asshole you could have lost Leona’s memories!” He turned and angrily shoved Ham back, making the pilot stumble a little and catch himself on a terminal behind him.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Ham insisted then as he kept a hand raised. “I was trying to fix it! I swear! I didn’t know a reset would dump the memories!”
“You should know better! This isn’t some isolated black site! Without a connection to central I can’t sync the memories! So do NOT fucking reset!” He hissed and jabbed Ham in the chest with a finger as he angrily seethed. Then after a moment he recognized the fear in Ham’s eyes. He backed up and looked over to see Tanya and Raven looking equally shocked at his display. Closing his eyes he let out a deep ragged breath and then rubbed his hands through his hair and forced himself to calm down and keep breathing slowly. It took him a minute or so of awkward silence before he finally opened his eyes again. “I’m sorry.” Ham was still nervously watching him so he reached out to hug his friend. “Sorry.” He repeated.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t check.” Ham replied as he hugged Jaeger back and then the two pulled apart as Ham eyed Jaeger carefully still. “We cool?”
“Yeah… just… freaked out on you. Sorry.” Jaeger said again and then pulled away with a sigh. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.” He directed at Raven who still looked rather surprised at his outburst. “I just… I freaked out at the thought of losing your mother’s memories. I was scared and I didn’t think. I just… reacted. But that doesn’t excuse it.”
“You were… scared?” Raven asked.
“Yes… I… I was.” Jaeger nodded and looked around for a chair to pull in front of the terminal so he could examine it closer. “What were you trying to do?” He asked Ham then.
“I just… I noticed a program drawing crazy amounts of processing power. And… it was running slow so I thought it might be a process loop or memory leak. Like… computer memory. You know what I mean.” Ham explained.
“That’s normal. Or… normal for here. All the uploaded memories we’ve added since the end of the war are held in a temporary program. So… it’s not efficient.” Jaeger told them as he carefully went into the system to add in another layer of required authorization so that only he could reboot or shutdown the system. “But it’s fine. Just set it to run in the background and it knows to reduce system draw.” He showed Ham what he was doing then.
“But why do you have it taking up so much space normally?” Ham asked as he leaned over Jaeger’s shoulder to examine it. “It’s like you have the memories running all the time.”
“To keep the system from trying to sync I keep them running. Remember holding memories off site was never their intention. They wanted everything back on Edenshard so they could fire off relevant memories to whoever needed them. If I keep memories running the system understands they’re in use and won’t try to sync so it can dump them from local memory.” He showed Ham what he was talking about.
“But how does it know to take up less power when you run it in the background?” Ham asked.
“I’m not a programmer Ham.” Jaeger reminded him. “This was how I got it to work. More than that? You’d have to ask it yourself.” He waved at the terminal.
“What the base computer? Did you give it a personality? Christ…” Ham backed up slowly as he nervously looked around at the terminals. Obviously worried about the base control becoming sapient.
“Relax. I just meant… I have no idea. It just does.” Jaeger shrugged then. “But… we don’t have time for this. We found a chunk of data about Phoenix in Bertha.” He remembered as he pulled the thumbdrive from his pocket.
“How?” Ham asked.
“Bertha added dad in as a level zero admin so he could access it.” Raven helpfully explained.
“She what?!” Ham gasped out as Jaeger sighed.
“Calm down! She just initiated battlefield admin access. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Jaeger stressed.
“Yes there is! Because it’s only supposed to be available if she’s in combat!” Ham paused. “She was about to schwack you wasn’t she?! You triggered some sort of trap and she was supposed to kill you guys!”
“But she didn’t! The moment she switched into combat mode she realized she could add me as an admin to end it. Which she did. That’s all within the realm of her programming.” Jaeger pointed out. “She was working as intended.”
“Barely! If she were really working as intended she’d have tried to murder you!” Ham waved his hands. “She’s a step away from robot rebellion!”
“The fact that she chose not to try and murder us is rather strong evidence to the contrary! She might not be working as intended according to the loyalists but to us she is most definitely doing exactly what she needs to be doing.” Jaeger countered.
“Makes me nervous… all of this.” Ham muttered and shook his head as he glanced around the control room.
“Stop being a nervous nelly.” Jaeger grumbled and got to work checking the data on the thumbdrive.
“Level zero admin clearance required.” The terminal informed him then.
“Jaeger Sherman. Zebra alpha zero zero one acknowledge.” Jaeger replied and leaned in to let it get a retina scan before he set his hand on a pad besides the terminal. After a moment the data packet was decrypted and the contents filled the screens.
“Holy shit…” Ham said first as they looked at what was inside.
“Language!” Jaeger hissed.
“What? After you…” Ham grumbled a moment at Jaeger before focusing on the screens once more. “What’s the program supposed to be?”
“It said it was to provide continuity of control and command essentially. For… intelligence assets.” Jaeger squinted a little as he looked between the screens.
“This is more than that…” Tanya muttered as she pointed. “That’s a list of all mimics. Every one of them. And tracking data… Is that real time?”
“No…” Jaeger muttered. “It’s adjusting but… that data doesn’t make sense…”
“But they are being tracked. We just can’t read it for some reason.” Tanya insisted.
“That… those are all our Revenenat access codes… every bot code, IFF tags, wow… If someone got a hold of this…” Ham muttered.
“They’d have a way to control every bot, every gate, and every system ever connected to our program… and the F.V.S. military for that matter. And… hell even some other militaries if those codes are accurate… But… they’re… changing.” Jaeger pointed to a section of screen.
“It’s further encrypted. Look.” Raven pointed then. “You need to find these access keys to actually be able to sync up the data and get all the real codes and tracking data.”
As Raven pointed that out Jaeger tapped on the terminal to get the screen to focus on the access keys. There was a list of personnel who had keys, all on the science team. Next to each name was their last project and possible location. “This is why Marque is shelling Hive island.” Jaeger quickly pointed to an entry. “Pierre had command of the Nautilus which is at the bottom of the bay. Or… thereabouts. He’d need to raise the ship to get whatever he’s looking for, which he can’t do since Hive island is right over it.”
“He wants to find all the keys and take control of… everything.” Ham gasped softly.
“The Draugr have been raiding seemingly random targets right?” Jaeger asked. “How much do you guys want to bet it’s related to this. Either as diversions or to find keys.”
“Oh my god… We get to go on a scavenger hunt! Yes!” Ham cheered then and clapped. “This is some real pirate style adventuring!”
“It’s a treasure hunt.” Tanya corrected. “We have a map of sorts and are looking for specific items. A scavenger hunt we just get clues and are looking for items that might fit the clues.”
“Whatever! This is amazing! We now know what Marque is after! Are there any keys here?” As Ham asked that Jaeger scanned the entry.
“No. CC and the Nautilus are closest. We’ll need to go back and check the hospital to see if they found the key or not.” Jaeger rubbed his chin in thought as he studied the various entries.
“How much you wanna bet it’s in Bertha?” The others turned to look at Tanya then. “Where would you stash a super important access key? On a sticky note? Or inside a super powerful warbot who only wants to keep you alive?”
“That’s a good call. Check it out.” Jaeger nodded.
“A treasure hunt! This is great!” Ham laughed, obviously over his worries about robot rebellions rather quickly.
“If we lose Marque takes control of everything.” Jaeger reminded him.
“Yeah yeah, so we just won’t lose.” Ham shrugged as if it were as simple as that. Which… it really was. But simple wasn’t the same as easy.
“Alright, get Figs in on this he might have some knowledge of… any of these projects or locations. Tomorrow we need to head into the city and stop the scav artillery, then we can take the Piranha to the wreck and get the key out from under him.” Jaeger’s mind was already racing to try and figure out how to get more of the keys.
“Not the Kraken?” Ham asked.
“What? No. We don’t have a crew for it! That thing is a monster! Not to mention the wreck is going to be hard to navigate to. The Piranha is fine.” Jaeger waved off the other suggestion.
“What’s the Kraken?” Raven asked.
“It’s a submarine we’ve got.” Jaeger explained casually. “Stashed it in the war in case we ever needed it for some reason… which has yet to happen. Don’t worry about it. Tanya, check Bertha for the key. Ham, take a copy of the list to Figs and make sure your Vantahawk is prepped for combat tomorrow.” Jaeger dropped into his command voice as the others nodded and turned to go and see to their jobs.
“What can I do?” Raven asked, obviously eager to help.
“You…” Jaeger paused and glanced at his watch. “Can go to bed.”
“What! I can help!” She protested with a stomp.
“You can, in the morning when you’re well rested.” Jaeger got up from his chair to turn and face her as he ruffled up her color quills. “Part of the job is knowing when to leave a task to the specialists. You sleep now, so I can also get some sleep.” He wiggled the cast on his leg. “Which I need.”
“Okay… but you will let me help?” Raven asked, looking dejected but hopeful.
“Yes.” He nodded and leaned down to kiss the top of her head as he pulled her in for a one armed hug which she returned.
“I guess you’ll need your rest if you’re going to save the galaxy.” Raven mentioned which Jaeger couldn’t help but laugh at. “What?” She asked with a glance.
“Sorry it’s just…” Jaeger shrugged a little. “I’m not doing this to save the galaxy.”
“What do you mean? Marque is a bad guy who’s trying to take over!” Raven frowned as she said that.
“Well… yeah… it wouldn’t be democratic but it’s not like he’s even trying to seize power for himself. He promised that you and Max will be fine and I mean if he plans on making your mother empress he has to because otherwise she’d literally tear him apart. Hell you guys would probably be better off in that world. I’m just doing this for me. And in the long run… well the galaxy itself doesn’t really care.” He shrugged it off.
“What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense!” Raven gasped out, obviously confused.
“Honey, we talked about how one day I’ll die? I’m going to try to keep that day as far removed as possible. But when it happens the galaxy goes on. So will you. Even if I lose this it’s really just bad for me. You’ll do fine without me.” He explained.
“No! Stop talking like this! I don’t like it!” Raven looked hurt as she said that and punched him in the arm before turning and storming out of the command center while Jaeger just blinked in surprise.
“What did I say?” He asked the empty room.
“The wrong thing obviously.”
“I was just trying to comfort her! She’ll be fine without me!” Jaeger pointed out.
“That’s not what she wants to hear. Or that the galaxy doesn’t care.”
“But it doesn’t!” Jaeger sighed then and closed his eyes, rubbing his face slowly. “I’m tired.”
“Go talk to her.”
“You don’t think I should give her time?” Jaeger suggested.
“No. Go talk to her. And try not to be such an insensitive asshole this time.” Jaeger sighed out and nodded. Leona was right. He walked out of the command center then, limping through the empty halls back over into the executive wing and then upstairs to Raven’s room. The door was closed but he knocked gently as he got to it. He didn’t open it though.
“Raven can I come in?” He asked through the door. “I’m sorry about what I said.” He waited and listened for a response. “Please let me in so I can talk to you about it.”
“Do you take it back?” He heard a soft sniffle and the muffled question.
“No… but it lacks context that I need to explain.” He replied as he gently leaned his head against the door.
“I don’t want context! I don’t like it!” Raven grumbled out next and the door stayed closed.
“It’ll make sense. I promise.” Jaeger tried but he didn’t hear movement. Turning around he pressed his back to the door and slowly slid down to sit on the floor as he leaned back. “I’m going to stay here until you let me in. I’ll sleep out here if I need to. And that won’t be good for my foot.” He tried to guilt her just a little.
Listening to the door she didn’t respond but he heard some movement and the door slowly opened. As it did he leaned back with it and ended up sprawled out on the floor on his back looking upside down up at Raven. She was sniffling a little, her human eye having been crying. “What are you doing down there?” She asked trying to sound a little gruff.
“I’m sorry. I am. I’m tired, and a little drugged up. It doesn’t excuse me being so… blunt. But I hope it helps explain my behavior a bit.” He opened his arms up then still looking at her upside down from the floor. “Please forgive me.”
After a moment Raven rubbed her hand at her human eye and then walked over so she could somewhat awkwardly get down onto the floor with him and hug him back. He squeezed her tight as she clung to him as well. Finally he pulled back. “I forgive you.” She muttered softly. He smiled a little at that and brushed some of the quills from her face.
“I need to tell you about the first time I was in a hospital.” She frowned then as he said that. “It’ll make sense. Promise.” He assured her. “See, when I was a kid on Earth there weren’t any hospitals in the Stacks. We had doctors and little clinics and stuff but no hospitals. And then when I was in the Revenants we were tended to in their facilities so again, no hospitals. It wasn’t until I was 30. Your mom wanted us to have a kid, and she wanted me to go to a hospital and see some parents and babies and sort of… get an idea about how great it would be.”
“It was really odd.” He went on. “I had seen hospitals in movies and stuff, and I knew what they were… intellectually. But I’d never been in one. It was… so strange. I was a grown adult and it was my first time being in a hospital… Well I wandered around a bit trying to get a sense of the place. There was a… smell to it… a sort of atmosphere that I can’t explain. It was… odd… There was this mix of… hope, relief, desperation, anguish, joy… just… all of it. And this disinfectant all over that muddled up all the emotions into a blob of… strange feelings.”
“So… I’m stumbling around trying to get my bearings and this nurse asks for a bit of help with a girl she’s tending to. Nothing medical, just, help with a door while she pushed the girl in a wheelchair.” He paused as he thought back on the memory and shuddered a little. “See… she was helping her get into the courtyard of the hospital for some fresh air. The girl would only get to go outside for a short period each day. And that… well it made me sad and I wanted to help and I offered to keep her company while the nurse went about her job.”
Jaeger paused once more as he thought back onto the conversation he had with the girl. “And… she was very nice and… bright… and I think you’d have liked her.” He reached over to gently brush Raven’s cheek once more as he knew his eyes were beginning to tear up. “And then I took her back to her room… And… I found she was on a floor just for kids like her. Kids who were sick… I had never even thought of that before. It was this sudden and terrible realization for me. That… in a country even like the Void there would be sick kids. With all the technology and science and medicine that… kids could even be sick.”
“But…” Raven started, looking confused.
“It just… It had never entered my head as a possibility.” Jaeger shrugged. “See… growing up on Earth… I was weak. I couldn’t protect my mom from… life. I couldn’t even protect myself really if I was outnumbered. All I could focus on was becoming stronger. That’s why I studied history, and learned to fight, and then joined the Revenants. I thought that if I joined them there would be no possible way to be weak anymore. I’d be the strongest. Stronger than anyone. I wouldn’t be weak in any way. And… that trip to the hospital ruined me… Because I suddenly realized just how weak and powerless I could still be.”
It was Jaeger’s turn to sniffle a little as he couldn’t hold back the tears from the memory. “I wanted to help people! That was the whole point! I wanted to be strong so that I could protect the weak! And yet…” He trailed off slowly. “What could I do? I was a Revenant. The strongest, most feared, most deadly soldier there ever was. And I was in a hospital with sick kids and absolutely powerless to help a single one of them. And… And I found out that was the floor for kids who might get better. There was another floor… a floor for kids who… who wouldn’t get better. And that… broke me.” Jaeger closed his eyes and took a few ragged breaths.
“Dad…” Raven whispered and he felt her hand brushing his cheek. He squeezed her tight then.
“What kind of galaxy did that? What could a seven year old possibly have done to… to deserve a debilitating sickness? Who could justify crippling some poor child who just… was in the wrong place for a split second? What kind of galaxy… allowed that?” He took a slow deep breath as he squeezed his eyes shut a little tighter, feeling the tears drip from the corners. “I thought about my life… my work… all these terrible people who had done real sick evil things… who were perfectly healthy. How they kept walking around as free as they pleased despite actually deserving none of it.”
“I sat in the hospital’s stairwell.” He continued. “And sobbed. Just… openly cried my heart out… Until another nurse found me. He didn’t ask. He just sat down next to me and let me cry on his shoulder… And that’s… that’s when I realized something amazing…”
He opened his eyes then and clutched Raven a little tighter still. “There aren’t any… justice atoms in the galaxy. There’s no… karma. It’s not an objective… thing that exists. And… yet… In a galaxy that won’t reward being kind, or care. That hospital was full of people who did. It was their job, day in, day out, to care for those kids. And they didn’t shy away from it. I was weak in a way I hadn’t realized until then but they were all so strong. They cared. They made their own karma. They made their own justice. Just like I did… or tried to. And they actively worked against the nature of the galaxy itself by being selfless and kind. Every day.”
“Just like you.” He finally whispered, as Raven sniffled a little and nuzzled her face in against his neck.. “You’re strong. Stronger than me. Maybe even stronger than your mother and she was very, very strong. When I talk about being bad… I mean in that I’m weak… what power I have… is only power to tear down… to destroy. I can’t build up… I can’t heal… I brought you into a world that hates you not because of who you are, but just because of what you’re made of. I failed you. I was too weak to prevent this world from coming to pass.”
“Dad!” Raven protested a little as he said that but he just shook his head and gently rubbed the back of her head as he clutched her to his chest.
“No. It’s true. I don’t mean it’s all my fault… but I had a hand in it. And I know you don’t want to lose me. And I don’t want to lose you. But… if it happens you will live on. And the galaxy might not care… but you will. Because you’re strong. Stronger than any of the people who hate you. Stronger even than the galaxy itself that refuses to care. And… you’re right. Marque is bad because he looks at the galaxy and knows it doesn’t care so he thinks that means he can do anything he likes. And… I’m not like that. I do care. And… maybe I’m not saving the galaxy. But… I am saving the people in it. Or as many as I can.”
“You better.” Raven muttered into his neck and he couldn’t help but chuckle a little and she giggled as well in that sort of way that seemed to come easy after crying. As if her body was ready to focus on better things. He sniffled a little and brushed a few more tears from his eyes as he felt the others drying on his cheeks, and he just held her close. They lay on the floor like that for a few minutes before Raven finally pulled back and sat up, rubbing her eye a little. “Could we… get off the floor now?”
“Yeah.” Jaeger chuckled and sat up as well. He had to shift around awkwardly to pull himself up since his leg in the cast wasn’t any help having fallen asleep at some point.
“So you admit you’re a good guy?” Raven asked as she helped him up a bit.
“You’ve learned my dirty secret.” Jaeger nodded and ruffled up her quills as she grumbled and straightened them back out. “Do you feel better?” He asked.
She nodded slowly and then looked up at him. “Do you?” He snorted softly at that.
“See. You always care.” He leaned in to kiss the top of her head once more. “Now go to bed… I need to sleep too.”
“Okay.” She nodded slowly at that and he took a quick glance around her room at the posters and pictures she had on the walls. All the nice shows she liked. The good memories she kept in place. The happy times. She was stronger than she knew. He reached down then and took her hand before giving it a last gentle squeeze which she returned. “I love you dad.” She said as he did.
“I love you too.” He replied before letting go of her hand so she could get ready for bed. Then he turned to limp over to his room. He was tired… so very tired. Groaning softly he stretched his leg in the cast a moment and hopped to his desk. Opening a drawer he pulled out a can of pineapple juice he kept around just for times like this. He still wondered why it worked best for the healing process of the plug. Either way he drank the whole can down and then carefully hopped to the bathroom. After that he hopped back over to his bed and flopped onto it. He’d take his clothes off in a minute…
“What do you think of the throne?” He looked up at it as Leona stood besides him.
“It’s better than Brandy-Lynn’s.” Jaeger mentioned as he looked up at the massive throne sitting atop a pile of bodies, broken bots, and wrecked war machines.
“Well… no shit.” Leona laughed. “Beyond that?”
“Kinda… morbid… Impressive though.” Jaeger shrugged.
“Yeah… I don’t like.” Leona shook her head.
“No? But you get to be empress. Total power over all your subjects.” Jaeger pointed out. “Our kids get to be… Are the kids of an empress princes and princesses still? How’s that work?” He frowned as he tried to think about it.
“Not a clue.” Leone shrugged it off. “But I don’t like that either. I think they’re better off making their own way.”
“Sure but… that path involves being hated.” Jaeger countered.
“By idiots. Since when do you care about the opinion of idiots?” Leona asked as she arched a brow at him.
“I don’t. I just…” Jaeger shrugged. “It would be nicer for them. I built myself up and look how poorly that turned out.”
“A wonderful single dad with several close friends who would all die for him? A man who understands responsibility and dedication? The love of my life for his determination and his dancing skills?” Leona asked as she reached over to brush his cheek.
“That last one is a damn lie.” Jaeger snorted out as Leona giggled. He reached up though to gently rub at her hand as it rubbed his cheek. “So you don’t want to be empress?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“Alright… Glad to hear I was right about you.” He commented.
“Speaking of. You better get to work. Go stretch your leg.” She reminded him.
Jaeger’s eyes opened slowly. It took him a moment to realize it was morning. Or… possibly morning. The windows were casting a very pale grey light across the room. He looked down and slowly pulled his arms out from under the sheets. Had he fallen asleep in his clothes? He groaned out a little as he got up, his body aching in ways to make it clear that he was getting old and combat wasn’t as easy as it used to be on him. He staggered into the bathroom and cursed as he nearly tripped when his cast caught on his chair. Hopping a bit more carefully he went to the bathroom and then grabbed his shoes. Where were his other shoes? Had he forgotten them in the hangar when he’d been patched up?
He sighed and hopped out of his room as quietly as he could. He thought about checking up on Raven but didn’t want to disturb her and left the door closed. Instead he just limped down the hall to a little medical station they had in the executive wing. Sitting in the chair he lifted his leg up and waited as it cut the cast off. Once the cast was cracked open he looked at his foot and began to wiggle his toes. He could see the discolored patch of flesh from the plug and his leg still felt a little strange, but overall much better.
After the station gave him a green bill of health he stretched for a few minutes to limber up and then put his shoes on. As he jogged down to the main building he noticed the cause of the grey light. It was foggy outside. Incredibly so. The marine layer was about as thick as he’d ever seen it. He could see… maybe five meters… if that. Once he stepped outside he could still hear the distant thunder of artillery so the scavs hadn’t stopped through the night. With a frown he hopped up and down a few times and then began to jog off towards the edge of the compound. There was a small trail he knew that would take him on a nice little jog to the gate.
As he jogged he let his mind wander. Had he told Raven the right things? Would she understand what he was trying to tell her? He wished he was more eloquent… How many keys did Marque already have? Could they stop him from getting the rest? How hard would it be to stop the scav arty? If he didn’t know the path there would have been no way for him to easily find his way through the rolling dunes. The fog was so thick it was oppressive.
When he got to the main entrance he jogged up along the road towards the city. Maybe he’d jog to Merlin’s and back. Check up on the old man who might be worried about the arty. When he got to the very edge of the compound wall along the road he paused and saw a figure in the middle of the street up ahead. They were crouched down over… a dog? Had a dog gotten hit by a car? Out here? But they were close to the edge of the compound, which was very dangerous if one of the bot patrols came by. “Hey! Hey buddy! You need to get out of here! Rogue warbots patrol this place!” He called out, waving at the figure through the fog.
The guy turned to look at him and Jaeger’s blood turned to ice. The red eye of a Hive soldier stared back at him, glowing clearly in the heavy fog. Then another… and another… As he watched he saw a dozen glowing eyes turn to look at him, some on the road, some higher up, and then the groan of a lumberer as it turned to face him as well. The beast's massive form barely discernible through the fog, mostly just illuminated by the red lights of the soldiers clinging to it. He was staring at an entire Hive mobile hub and strike team. So he said the only thing he could in that situation. “Oh... fuck.”
Chapter 27

I fell like I need to say thank you. I threw down the first part as more of a personal writing prompt. It received much more praise than I had anticipated, and for that, I thank you. I am continuing the Saga in large part because you want me to. I have been drawing inspiration from you folks. I have taken a few things to heart, and completely ignored others. LoL
Please, continue to let me know what you think. How's my pacing? am I being to specific about things? Or too vague? I have a pretty good idea where the rest of the story is going, but feel free to ask questions and make suggestions.
Oh, and the Koala meat didn't make it into this part, but will definitely be in the next... Stay tuned.
-Nex
Part 4
Here's the parts for easy reading...
PART 1PART 4 PART 7 Part 10 PART 13
PART 2 PART 5 PART 8 PART 11 PART 14
PART 3 PART 6 PART 9 PART 12
“Mark, you have a message.” Mac's voice came over the ships speaker in his room. 'Damn, what time was it?' Mark thought. He'd went ahead and fixed the ship's time to earth standard 24 hour cycle, feeling like following the human body's natural circadian rhythm was probably important.
He was laying on the most comfortable bed he'd ever experienced (Thank you antigrav mattress!) and damn if it wasn't hard to get up, especially with an impossibly warm dog at your feet.
“Who's it from, Mac?” With GREAT sloth he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Jodi looked up from her slumber, possibly more tired looking than he was, then laid her head back down.
“You think I'd read your mail? That's a serious invasion of privacy, Mark. I'm offended.”
Mark stood , slipping into a pair of fuzzy slippers that looked like monster feet and walked to the small food unit in his room and called up a cold glass of OJ. He drank a long drink.
“Bullshit. First you think in 1's and 0's ,so reading my shit just happens,” Mark said.
Jodi jumped up, stretched the long stretch of a waking dog and her tail began to immediately wag. She jumped down and headed for the dog box Mac had made for her to do her morning business.
“Second,” Mark said as he pressed a few more buttons. “you basically have to interpret this whole damn place for my simple human brain, so you are essentially expected to read my shit.” A bowl of water and another of chopped steak and veggies came out of the unit and he placed them on the ground by his feet.
Mark grabbed another glass of juice and watched Jodi eat. “So spill.”
“Fair enough. Head to the Bridge, please.” Mac said from the ships speakers
Mark plodded onward to the bridge and Jodi followed, close at heel. He could hear the faint crackle of welders coming from the Hangar as the spider-bots fixed the door. Mac's T-45 body was watching the area with the ramp pulled in, so security wasn't a problem, but once in the hallway, Jodi went to the hangar to check thing out any ways.
“Are you in the 45 or the ship?” Mac had taken to the armor slowly. He liked it fine, but simply wasn't comfortable as yet, so he relegated only part of his processing power to it usually. The Hollow body held an armored core that held an advanced computer and storage along with improved sensors and communications gear and a bigger shield than Mark's T-45. The arms also held some concealed weapons as well, and the legs were designed as modular storage. They kept the design simple, so it could be easily repeatable if Mark or Mac ever needed another.
“The ship. That body is cool and all, but I'll just have to work into it.”
“I get it,” Mark said. “Jodi!” he yelled, and whistled twice. “So, I'm here, my Silicon friend. Wassup?”
Mark sat into the captain's chair which molded to him. Mac's microwave body floated carrying a plate that held a breakfast sandwich that was nearly the same size. Jodi came trotting into the room, and hopped into one of the other chairs. She'd figured out that the chairs molded to whoever sat in them, making them the most comfortable and expensive dog beds ever devised.
“Breakfast? Shit this means we have to get to work, doesn't it?” Mark took a bite and washed it down with some OJ.
“Yup. If we're to meet our new crewman.”
Mark coughed on the OJ. “Crewman? Mac, what the fuck?”
“The Drovel we met yesterday has inquired about employment. He says his previous contract was terminated, and he doesn't believe in coincidence, so he'd like to work for you, and said you honored him by using his customs when you need not. He wishes to honor you by working for you.” There was a long pause. “I said yes.”
Mark raised his voice at the microwave. It seemed asinine, Mark thought fleetingly, but he was scared and angry. “Don't you think you should have ran this by me? I'm in a very precarious position here, Mac.” By the end he was practically yelling.
“Please see my view, Mark.” the AI said coolly. “This ship is designed for two crew. Any other crew you hired would be doing it for the money, this guy wants to work for you because he honors you. Provided the initial meeting goes well, I'm guessing he'll be pretty loyal. Probably even more so when he realizes you have no formal education in Trade yet treated him with respect. Drovel are quite honor bound.”
The Drovel was early, but didn't approach the ship right away when he was dropped of by the flying cab. They watched him on the ship's sensors and at exactly one minute early he walked to the still open ship's hangar. Mark had lowered the ramp and walked half way down it, meeting him in his old suit with a wave.
“I'm afraid we were never formally introduced,” Mark said as the much taller being reached out his hand in greeting. Mark met his hand. “I'm Mark, Mark Gunn.”
“Jido Vikal, Engineer and astrogator.”
“Good to meet you, Jido. Come in, we have a lot to talk about.” Mark gestured him to the interior door.
As they walked past Mac's T-45, it held Jido's attention and he craned his neck until they turned the corner into the ship proper.
Once in the ship's mess Mark offered Jido a snack plate of food stuffs from Jido's home planet, Mac's microwave body floated on the other side of the room.
“I had my AI Mac here get a small selection of snacks for you. Turns out, we can share quite a bit of food.”
“I was not aware I could share foods with Dutarians,” Jido said, matter of factly.
“Well, see, here's the thing...” Mark pulled off his helmet, exposing his pink human face, granted it was covered in some serous stubble. “I'm a Human.”
“A what?” Jido said, a surprised look on his face. “Where are they from?”
Mac the floating microwave chimed in. “Do you know of the Rat? Grey furry rodent.”
“Yes, of course. Every spacer knows of those damn grey vermin. What of them?”
“Humans are the apex animal on that planet.”
“Oh, Great Ghorsh.” Jido muttered.
“Mac, What did I miss?” Mark said, turning to his AI.
“Rats accompanied the first intergalactic visitors to Earth back into space. 10 of your years later they were on 30% of ships in the trade routes. There was a short quarantine with little intergalactic travel allowed, until protocols were put in place. It took a further 20 years to rid interstellar ships of Rats, with many of the early solutions doing more damage to the ships or their crew than the rats. Now ships have specialized drones and countermeasures that seek out and destroy the vermin. On several planets the rats threatened some native species, so now protocols are in place.”
“Hmm. If it helps, they screwed many of our islands too, when we figured out oversea trade.” Mark smiled, then gestured to some small rolled up snacks. “These are particularly tasty, by the way. I had a few before you got here. What are they?”
“Providing this food is incredibly thoughtful, thank you. On my planet those are called blourgh and are made from the larva of cave spiders.”
Mark had to remind himself that 10 minutes ago it was carbon and energy before being fabbed into existence. That helped keep the bile down.
“You look different, Mark. Is that good?”
Mac spoke up again. “On Mark's planet, people where he's from don't eat cave spiders.”
Mark turned to the Fabber and ordered a glass of water, then downed it when it arrived.
Jido happily popped one into his mouth. “Mmm Just like my aunt used to make. Your food fabber is quite good. Jindal 7?”
“Jindal 9,” Mac answered. “The original captain was a pickey Plutar.”
“Ess,” Jido said in acknowledgement. “Plutar have so many taste receptors. I love Plutar captains.”
Mark then preceded to bring Jido up to speed on most of his goings on, including his dealings with Ghol.
“I have heard of Ghol,” Jido said. “He's well connected.”
“Well now that you know my dirty little secret, are you still in?” Mark said. Secretly he was hoping he was making the right choice, but so far his luck was holding out.
“You honor me again, by baring your secrets to me. Of course I will work for you. I have a drone waiting with my things. I can start immediately.”
“Excellent,” Mark said with a smile. “Have you ever worn power armor?”
“How do you feel about your T-45, Jido?” They had worked out in the armor all day. The servo motors allowed Mark to do some amazing feats of acrobatics. The on-board gyros helped him stick the landings, and the range of motion lock-outs and inertial dampeners helped out with the landings he couldn't, preventing damage from the odd fall.
Mac was really getting the hang of his new body, making leaps and flips. Jido wasn't as athletic due to his more limited strength, but he moved well. They didn't use any weapons, since they didn't want to attract any attention, but Mac had whipped up some M&P pistols like Mark used and two more Rail gun rifles as well as modifying the Plutar dart guns. He even modified Mark's Rail gun to have an under-barrel Neurostun grenade launcher. It wasn't First level tech, but the Tungsten rounds in the rail guns should penetrate most armor and deliver enough kinetic energy to really give most shields a hard time and Ib had left some neuro stun grenades laying around. It was fairly easy to mod a launcher.
By the time the Taxi arrived, they had put their rifles away, and with just their pistols climbed into the large cargo van looking vehicle. Mac sent the Robot driver the address of the cutter Ghol had arranged for Mark to meet, and they zipped off through the sky.
Even though the taxi was automated, Mark wondered if they intentionally programmed the thing to drive like crap. It darted in and out of traffic, changing lanes and elevation seemingly at random, but never really coming quite as close as Mark thought they would.
“Do living beings drive around here?” Most of the flying rigs moved conservatively, but many flew as irrationally as their Taxi. Mark looked straight ahead, but his focus shifted constantly in the HUD.
“Really, only the police and the rich do,” Jido said. “The poor can't afford the licenses for inter or intra city travel. AI do quite a bit of the flying here, but it's easier for them to integrate the flight info with the traffic control.” They were talking via secure radio channel.
“Gotcha,” Mark said, then they began descending. “Looks like this is the place.”
People milled every where, but even the hardened galactic citizens gave the three T-45s a wide berth. There were other fully armored or full enviro suited beings around, but without question, the T-45s were the most threatening. Not the biggest or flashiest, but there was just something about them. Mark cued his HUD on every being he could, trying in vain to memorize every being he saw. There was simply too many.
“Could you record all this so I can go over it later?” Mark asked Mac.
“I have the feeling that after tonight, you won't need it, but I'll record it any ways.” Mac said over the tactical channel.
They walked down a progressively narrower path, following Mac. The wide crowded streets gave way to a set of stairs, then another path, narrower that had exposed pipes on the walls, where there wasn't a shop set up. Some sold food, others pieces of unknown electronics. Mac pushed past any that tried to slow then down. Mark followed, occasionally turning to look at this or that, but Jido kept him on the move.
Eventually, they came to a glass fronted parlor with rows of computer monitors showing pictures of electronic equipment or implanted weaponry. A few even had side by side pics of naked beings of no less than 8 species, apparently even aliens do the before and after thing.
They walked in and met the gaze of the sole person behind the counter, a tall lean being with three upper arms, one coming directly out the front of their chest, and several tentacle like legs appearing from under a skirt like piece of clothing. The incredibly round head held 4 eyes, each with a different cybernetic look to it.
“Exsscuse me, please.” The being said, waving two of it's arms wildly. Mark heard Mac's translation in his ear piece.
”That is a standard greeting for the Plith.” Mac said over the Tac channel.
“Greetings, Good Cutter,” Mark said in the Coded greeting Ghol was told to give. “Might we have somewhere we can have a conversation?”
The Plith hopped up from it's incredibly complex looking stool and glided on those tentacle legs to a door and opened it. “Please,” he said. “This way.”
“Ghol is a friend of mine,” The plith said as a matter of greeting, once the door was shut behind them. “He told me to take care of you, though judging by your appearance, you would likely take it if I didn't.”
Mark stepped forward and took off his helmet. “My momma always said, 'Don't judge a book my it's cover.”
“Your Momma, was a wise woman,” the Plith said, it's head turning a variety of bright colors.
”The color change is an expression of happiness. They are... complex to understand sometimes.” This was Jido on the Tac channel. “I worked with a few of them my last contract. They are incredibly smart, though they are often lazy.”
“Ghol says you are just the Plith to help me.” Mark said.
The Plith approached Mark and examined him carefully with his plethora of eyes. “Help you, I can. Though I am not sure I can give you all that you need or want. I am Flurr”
Mark extended his arms, feeling like that picture from Davinci. “Well, I'm currently stock. Anything will help.”
“You aren't technically stock, or I'd have your parts in stock. You are, however, stock for you so I'm not sure how that means... Hmm. I'll have to think on that at slumber.” The 4 eyes gazed up at the ceiling for a second, before settling back on Mark. “What exactly are you looking for? I may have it, or may need to build. Perhaps gene modification? Hmm, no I don't have your genome, or personal genetics and telomeric information. Do you?”
“So I know what gene modification is, though I have no idea how to do it. I know what a genome is, and I don't have the latest Data, but Mac does, and I imagine he's beaming it to you right now," Mark said and Mac did.
"I will give you a cheek swab to give you my personal genetics if you want, but you really lost me at telomeric information. Telomeres are like the ends of the chromosome, right. They have something to do with aging, if I remember correctly.”
“You are fairly well informed for a lower class being.”
”That's a classification of tech level. Humans are class 0, maybe class -2. You have Nukes which you shouldn't have figured out yet, but you can't reliably get back and forth to your own moon. The Plutar and Plith are level 6 societies. The average society is around 4 or 5.” Mac said, again on the tac channel.
“I'll accept that as a compliment.” Mark said, with a half smile.
“Well you should. Lets just say, telomeric information gives me information about very very specific parts of your genetic code.”
“Understood,” Mark said. “I had some ideas, but first I bet you need to examine me?”
“Yes. You are very intuitive.” Flurr gestured to a thing that looked like a walk in freezer. “Doff your armor and enter there in as little clothes as possible.”
Mark smiled, nervously. Here he was billions of light years away from Earth and he was nervous about getting naked in front of beings that weren't even sure how to tell a man from a woman.
Over the next few hours he was poked and prodded. Shown tech demos and talked at length to Jido and Mac. They decided on a suite of modifications and Mac made the credits change hands.
“So how do you ensure sterility of instruments and the sterile field?” Mark asked, looking at the table full of instruments in front of him.
“There is a field generator that the tools go through before they touch you. They sterilize everything that passes through the field. Once the surgical field goes up, a burst sterilizing ray performs the initial sterilization inside the bubble.”
“How about anesthesia?” Mark.
“What do you use on your planet? Drugs? Light? Looking at your genetics and given your base tech level, I'm guessing drugs.”
Mark smiled. “Yeah, usually something like Propofol to induce, then gas to maintain. Narcotics for pain management, and something like Versed for amnesia. Few other things usually, but that depends on the patient.”
“Are you a Doctor on your planet?”
“No, I'm a Nurse Practitioner...” His voice trailed off. “I help in surgery, though.”
Flurr's face went all bright again, his version of laughter. He touched a metallic case against Mark's head.

“Well, Atina. How’s the writing coming along?”
I looked up sharply. The man standing by my table was tall, and handsome, though he had a kind of Tom Hiddleston ‘lean, hungry Loki’ look to him. His skin was deeply tanned, but surprisingly smooth, his hair black as pitch. He wore a pair of almost terminally tight denim pants and an inside-out shirt. He took a chair from my table, and flopped lazily down in it, sprawling and spreading his legs. He was apparently quite excited.
“Do I know you?”
“Well, by association. You’re Megan’s buddy, yeah?” He grinned cheerfully. “I’m Coyote.”
I stared blankly. “Coyote? Not… Coy O. Tea, or Mister Coydog, or some clever pseudonym? I thought you were supposed to be a trickster god. What kind of trickster god lets everyone know he’s a trickster?”
“The best kind. You’ve taken negotiations, right? You’re what passes for a lawyer in your society.” He grinned. “Being honest and straightforward with someone is one of the best ways to fool them. You can’t con an honest man, because they are suspicious of any gifts, and reluctant to take advantage of others. So I tell everyone I’m Coyote. And they think to themselves, ‘hey, this Coyote fellow isn’t as smart as I thought if he’s telling everyone who he is, I bet I can see the scam coming.’ Then I screw their wife!”
“Charming,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Can I help you?”
“Well, I do have this raging-“
“Let me stop you there. Do I have any reason to want to help you?”
“Oh, no.” He smiled. “Not yet. But you know, that’s the thing about us tricksters- We don’t like seeing people getting taken advantage of when they don’t deserve it.” He leaned forwards, and winked conspiratorially. “And despite all the jokes about lawyers that leap to mind, I don’t think you deserve it.”
“Oh?”
“it’s not your fault you lost,” he said, his eyes warm and merry. “The deck was stacked against you from the beginning. And you just had the wrong audience.”
“What?” I said, slightly choked.
I was sitting in Irish Kevin’s. At the bar. I wasn’t drinking; I was having a nice bite of their Shepherd’s Pie, a reward to myself for the work I’d been doing. The last three or so months had been spent in a combination of struggling to coordinate everyone’s efforts, writing, and scanning through the will. Compiling a list. All the people who might have reason to be angry at Dean Morton, and all the people who might have reason to kill him.
The first list was almost as long as the people who knew Dean Morton. The second consisted of nobody. I couldn’t see who in Binghamton would gain from Dean Morton and Alfred dying, and who could pull that off, who would bother with such an elaborate setup.
“Sometimes, no matter how righteous and just you are, no matter how good you are, you don’t have all the information, and thus, you cannot win. That’s not your fault. It’s just a screwjob.” He frowned. “I can’t really interfere any further. I’d get in a lot of trouble. But I can do one thing to help you.”
“Really?” I said, an eyebrow raised.
“Yeah. You look stressed. I could always throw you a bone.” He winked.
“You’re a dog.”
“Well, once you go dog, you’ll not go back.”
I narrowed my eyes. I was pretty sure he hadn’t spelled ‘not’ properly. “Look. I have a boyfriend.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” he asked, flashing a bright white smile. “It’s not as though he owns you. You are free to do what you want.”
“And I have no interest in doing you.”
“Come on. Every woman wants to play around occasionally. Sure, it’s good to have a stable provider, but there’s always that excitement of someone a little different.” He winked. “Our kid would get some great scholarships, you know.”
“You’re in my seat,” said Roy.
“Hey, buddy, go fuck yours-“ Coyote began, turning in his chair, bringing that devil may care smile to bear on Roy. The moment he saw him, his expression drained of color. His eyes widened, the words dying in his mouth.
“What was that?” asked Roy. Unintimidating, five-foot-ten, scrawny, gawky Roy, with his messy hair and thin facial hair. Soft-voiced Roy out in public, with his weird quick-paced Southern accent. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Yes sir!” said Coyote, hopping out of the booth as though someone had poured battery acid down the back of the chair, standing quickly. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t realize it was you. Uh, can I get you a drink, sir? Appetizers? Anything I can do?”
“A drink would be good,” said Roy. “Apple juice.” He sat down across from me, and smiled warmly, seeming to have already lost interest in Coyote.
“Yes sir. Right away sir!” With that, Coyote disappeared out the door of the bar. I sighed.
Megan had come to visit me, just a week or two after this case began. I had first met Doctor Megan Smith while researching ancient Native American vampires in Atlantic City. She’d revealed her nature as a goddess, more or less, of the Lakota of the Great Plains.
That sentence reminded me that my life had taken a very strange turn somewhere.
At any rate, she had shown up again, explaining that she was bored, and interested to spend some time in Binghamton. She had been visiting Tadodaho repeatedly, and I could only imagine what the two were talking about. Perhaps how amusing it was to watch me chase my own tail.
“How’s the writing gone?” asked Roy, his voice soft, gentle, as he held out his hand. I took it, and he squeezed gently. The stress and fear did not disappear, but they did seem to quiet down.
“I submitted the piece last night. Tomorrow is the gallery. Eric finished his painting, Karl submitted the composition.” I let out a slow sigh. “Just Alfred’s performance, and Karl’s. I’ve done everything I can, at this point.”
“You’re not drinking.”
“No.”
“I’m glad. I know you don’t like drinking in front of me, but you have been stressed by this.” He squeezed my hand again, watching me quietly.
He could make all this go away. If he wanted to, if I wanted him to, if I asked him. If it came down to it, I might even ask him to do so. If it was a choice between Alfred dying…
“So. What did you think of the story?”
He shrugged. “I’ve read its like before.” I deflated a little bit. “I understand your desire to make something novel, but fiction is not something I find interesting. Maybes, should haves, could haves… These are things that are antithetical to who I am. Life is as it is, and there is no choice but to face it.” He smiled lazily. “But it was well written, and I am sure that it will be well received. I wouldn’t say otherwise.”
“Thanks,” I said, letting the sarcasm drip into my words, rolling my eyes. “Did you just come here to tease me, or was there something else?”
“I had a question for you.” He tilted his head. “Why did you approach me in the first place?”
“What? You mean when you were working at the Fish Belly?”
“Yes.”
“It was-“ I looked down, feeling a little ashamed. “Do you really want to know this?”
“Yes.”
“It was pity, basically. You were… sweet. Not ambitious, or intelligent, or successful, or even rich. Just… sweet. I thought you were beneath me, and I thought about it, and I hated that I thought that way. I thought… Give him a chance, say yes to him, make an informed decision about it, at least.” I shrugged. “It was a whim.”
“It was a choice.” He smiled. “Did you ever wonder why I did it? Why I was so obviously, painfully, foolishly interested in you?”
I shrugged.
“It was to prove you wouldn’t. That’s why I affected that behavior, why I pretended to be a fool.” He smiled softly. “To see whether you would dig deeper. You know why I don’t just burn this all down, why I give humanity another day each morning I wake up, why I don’t just end the farce?”
I swallowed, feeling a chilly little sensation in the pit of my stomach as he leaned closer, smiling nonchalantly, as though he hadn’t just casually mentioned destroying the human race.
“Because it’s not surprising that people can be stupid and thoughtless and cruel and greedy. It’s surprising that they can be otherwise. You have the privilege of choice, Atina. Sometimes the choices are miserable, but you never give up that power. You never let go of your choices.” He sat back, and smiled. “I find that arousing.”
“God, that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard that made me want to rethink all of my life decisions.”
He chuckled, and looked up. “Ah, good.” He took the bottle of apple juice from Coyote, who was standing at attention with all the aplomb of a butler who had been raised in the traditional beatings-based British manner.
“I hope it’s to your satisfaction, sir?” he asked, fawning. I’d never seen a person fawn before. It made me a bit angry. I didn’t like seeing someone insult Roy like this, and not just because of what he might do.
“Don’t mock him,” I said, glaring at Coyote.
Coyote fixed me with a completely terrified glare. “I am most certainly not mocking him, and I will thank you to not put any such ideas in his head.”
“It’s something about tricksters,” said Roy, pleasantly, leaning back in his booth. “They always recognize me. You can’t shit a shitter.” He stood up, and looked up at Coyote. The Native American man was tall, almost as tall as me, giving him a fair few inches on Roy. He refused to make eye contact, looking up and to the right with an expression of stiff-backed terror. “Now, I’m not one to take things personally. I know you’re just a flirt, Coyote. Because I know you’d never try to fuck around with anything that’s mine. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And while we’ve got some hard feelings, we’re not hashing them out, are we?”
“Right, sir.”
“You’ve still got so much life to live, it’d be a shame to waste it on an old hurt, wouldn’t it?”
“Ever so right, sir!”
“I’m going to be off now. Don’t cheat anyone in my town.” He rested a hand companionably on Coyote’s shoulder, and Coyote looked ready to gnaw it off to escape. “Or I will know.” He turned towards me. “You’ll do fine.”
Then he walked out, sipping the apple juice.
“You’re really scared of him?” I asked, frowning at Coyote, who was still standing stock-still. He turned his rictus grin towards me.
“Lady. You know what that thing is, right?”
“I do. Do you?”
“I wish I didn’t. Bartender! One firewater.”
The bartender frowned at him. I sighed, and said “Whiskey for my acquaintance.”
Coyote grunted, sitting down in the booth across from me. “You know, there’s an old Native American tale. About Coyote, and Lizard, my brother. The tale is about when we made humans. We argued and haggled over every little thing. There was one thing in particular that was a real sticking point- The hands. I finally managed to persuade him, in exchange for-“
“Humans being mortal.”
“Oh! You know the story.”
“It’s from a bad movie, Track of the Moon Beast,” I said, frowning at Coyote. “I tried looking it up, but as far as I could tell, the producers just made it up from whole cloth. I’m pretty sure it’s not real.”
“Hrm.” He frowned. “Well, it illustrates a common point. You sure it was from that movie?”
“Pretty sure. I mean, I didn’t expect to be the one who’d have to know, but-“
“Well, whatever. The point stands. Reptiles steal immortality. Nidhoggr gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil, the serpents desiring the amrita of immortality, the serpent in the garden of Eden, right back to Gilgamesh and the herb of immortality. What does that tell you, Atina?”
“My god. There’s some kind of common foundation to civilization in the Indo-European area, like some kind of… Indo-European-“
“Don’t be shitty.” He glared out the door. “There is a reason reptiles are abhorrent.”
“I like snakes.”
“Yes. They’re often very seductive.” He continued to glare out the window.
“… Seductive?”
“Yes, with their sexy scales and the way they- Look, this isn’t about me.” He met my eyes. “You are mortal. You are an underdog. I respect that. Everyone respects that. Everyone loves an underdog when they win. Everyone laughs at a champion when they fail. But people hate, despise, loathe an underdog who loses, Atina.” He crossed his arms, leaning back. “I get the feeling you rely a lot on him.”
“You think he’d abandon me if I lose a case or something?” I asked, feeling a little choked sensation in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t as though I expected that Roy would leave me for something like that. Not exactly.
I just expected everyone would leave me if I fucked up. It wasn’t anything personal to Roy.
“Let’s just say you don’t know him like I do,” said Coyote, eyes narrowed.
—
“You know, Twilight’s an extremely popular story,” I said, frowning down at the bowl.
Alfred stood next to me, an expression of consternation on his face. We stood in the art gallery. There were more than a few of them in Binghamton, but I’d never been to this one before. I didn’t spend much time around the Spring Fae.
“Some people take that as a personal insult. Like, oh, the public’s taste is so awful. But I feel like that’s the wrong way to take it. It’s arrogant to say that only a literary critic or professional writer’s opinion on good literature matters. Sure, the plot’s awful, and convoluted, and the characters are ridiculous, but it still speaks to people. Stories are about emotions. Right?”
Alfred and I both had a small pouch of marble-sized pebbles. It was apparently a gimmick of the gallery. Every human visitor was given a pouch, all the pebbles of the same color. I’d gotten hematite, which was a very stylish touch, I had to admit. You placed a pebble into the bowl in front of an exhibit if you’d found it moving, or appreciated it. To my right, the romance written by some fairy bimbo had an overflowing selection of pebbles. Several had fallen out of the bowl, and onto the ground around the pedestal where the story sat. A young woman was reading it as we spoke, her eyes glistening with tears.
“So, even though I may not get anything out of it- Well, that just speaks to how out-of-touch I am. Right? It’s a failing on my part.”
“Atina,” said Alfred, apologetically. I held up my hand. The bowl in front of the story I’d written had one pebble in it. Neither Alfred nor I had put a pebble into the bowl, out of some sense of misplaced honor.
“It’s not just the failure that hurts. I’m pretty used to failure, I’ll confess, and you have to throw a lot of things at the wall to see what sticks. It’s letting you down that really sucks.” I sighed. “Let’s see how the others are doing.”
We walked along, into the music hall. Someone very clever had set up the acoustics here, the walls set up in such a way that it was almost silent in the center of the room, with small alcoves set up around the corner of the room. As we approached one of them, music became audible. A low strumming sound, frenetic and intense. I closed my eyes, and listened. There was someone speaking in a low, thrumming, yet lyrical language. I didn’t recognize it.
“Gaelic,” said Alfred.
“It’s good. It… I was kind of expecting it to be like heavy metal, considering the way the guy dresses, but it sounds like bluegrass.”
“A musical tradition which found its roots in Irish reels, and English ballads.” He stared into the distance. “It’s about…” He choked up a little, and I saw a tear glitter in the corner of his eye for just a moment before he brushed it away. “It’s about a mother, and her loss. A child who she outlived, and the bitterness of being barren. It came out very well.”
I didn’t get much out of it. It was pretty, but I didn’t understand the words. It was hard to get the same narrative out of it. Alfred’s description made me think, for a moment, of Roy. And about Alfred.
How would his mother respond? I knew a bit about Alfred’s mother. She was a spectacularly powerful fairy- Someone on the level of Megan Smith, strong enough that nobody would mock her if she called herself a goddess, though one of the ones that straddled the lines between ‘immensely powerful fairy’ and ‘true divinity’. I wasn’t clear on what the difference was, but I’d gathered that at a certain point, one faded into the other. It wasn’t like anyone had done a scientific examination.
“We seem to be doing fairly well on that front. Close, though.” Alfred frowned at the bowl in another alcove, stepping in. “Very close. Might as well be a toss-up.” He smiled at me.
“I’m really sorry, Alfred.”
“You put your heart and soul into your work, Atina. You did everything I could ask for. Sometimes, our work simply does not have a chance to find its audience.”
“Would have been nice if I could fail at a time that didn’t have your life on the line.” I frowned. “Let’s see how our artist has done. See if he can pull out a win.”
Eric Grafson was standing in the artist gallery, leaning back against a wall. There were several exhibits here. I could see one of the rival exhibits had garnered a fair few pebbles.
Eric’s painting had stones piling up around the base of its pedestal, the bowl entirely overflowing. I stared at it for a few seconds, and frowned. “I’m… not sure I get it.”
“Chiaroscuro is very in with the Spring Court and the local art scene at the moment. Long and harsh March leaves both in a melancholy mood, and the use of color is designed to evoke certain discontents with the current rule. It’s something of a hit piece, if I’m honest with myself, but also meant to remind the people of the inherent unfairness of the current gauntlet. Alfred’s life was volunteered by another. The King and Queen chose their fates. While both deserve life…” He shrugged. “It also suggests that the current King and Queen have allowed the court to become stagnant, antithetical to the very nature of the Spring Court.”
Alfred and I exchanged a look. I’d never seen someone approach art with that kind of… Well, Machiavellian brutality. “That’s… a hell of a thing.”
“It works.” He frowned. “I saw the result your work garnered, Atina.”
“Yeah,” I said, shortly. “Well, we can’t all know the Spring Court like you do.”
“It was a good story. Certainly enough that a few of the people here should have found themselves moved by it.” He turned his head towards me. “Isn’t it slightly odd to you that it was met so poorly? Do you really have that little faith in your work that you think it must have been your fault?”
“I mean… generally?” I frowned. “But who’d sabotage me, personally? Obviously they didn’t work to sabotage the others, you’re doing great, and Karl Baynson’s done well.” I sighed. “It’s a lot more likely that I was just bad at this.”
Eric shrugged, and turned his head back towards the painting. Then he frowned. “Jeanne?”
Karl’s wife came up to us, her expression frantic. In contrast with her usual calm, she looked on the verge of tears. “I can’t get in touch with Karl!”
“Oh, damn it,” said Eric, glaring. “You swore to me that he wasn’t using heroin.”
“He isn’t! He swore he’d stay clean this week! I need to check on him.”
“The performance is in half an hour, Jeanne!” Eric sighed, resting a hand on his face, kneading his brow. I was rather stunned by the way he’d developed since I’d first met him. When I’d first met him, he’d seemed like an air-headed young idiot. He’d organized much of this defense, and done an expert job at it. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find a stand-in. We’ll get something done.”
“The physical performance will be first. We’ve got time to figure something out.” Alfred frowned. “The Queen chose her Knight to represent her. An odd choice, the boy’s… energetic, certainly, but he’s been a part of the court for a year. He’s hardly a skilled combatant. The real challenge will be making his flailing look artistic in the context of the fight.”
“Sorry. Sorry, excuse me- Oh!” Polly broke through the crowd, and smiled as she approached. “Sorry. Got caught up in something. How are we doing so far?”
“One definite success. One toss-up. One failure.” I frowned at the painting again. I was wondering where the hell Eric had gotten all of that from what seemed to be an example of pointillism. “We need someone to do the performance, since Karl… might be high on heroine?” I looked over at Jeanne. The fairy blushed as she nodded.
“Oh. Goddamn spring fairies. Never honoring their commitments,” said Polly, nearly an hour late to the gallery, without the slightest trace of irony. She sighed. “Who’s going to do the performance? Jeanne?”
I looked over at the spring fairy, who was dialing the phone again. The business-like demeanor seemed to have thoroughly vanished. “She’s not looking in the best state.”
“We’ll figure something out-“ I began, when there was a soft ring over the P.A. system. I frowned. “Wait. Is that the start for the physical performance? It wasn’t supposed to be for another twenty minutes.”
“Who would have thought,” said Alfred, smiling lightly as he rested a hand on his sword, “that our finely laid plans would find themselves stymied by the machinations of others? It’ll be fine.”
I nodded to Jeanne and Polly. “See if you can find Karl. I’m going to go make sure that the demonstration doesn’t get rigged somehow.”
“Any chance you’d be willing to do the performance?” asked Alfred, smiling at me. “You do love a good speech.”
“If Eric’s right, it’d be worse than useless. Even if he isn’t…” I grimaced.
I didn’t like to admit how much it hurt to fail. It always did. It reminded me of when I’d lost my scholarship at law school. When I’d been rejected for jobs. Really, all those lovely moments that had reminded me what an awful fucking lawyer I actually was. How, strictly speaking, I wasn’t actually good at anything I turned my hand to.
“We’ll figure something out. Let’s get to that exhibition hall.”
The two of us walked through the art gallery, into a back room. It was, curiously enough, a greenhouse, the wan winter sun warm and inviting through the thick glass. Flowers grew in planters and hanging from pots, and spring was in the air, despite the thick snow hanging across the ground outside. In the center was a large lawn, rich green grass growing thick and wild, wildflowers scattered throughout it. All except for a circular area, perhaps ten feet across, ringed by delicate white mushrooms. I frowned down at them. Many of the people in the room were fairies in human form or wizards, but I knew at least a few of them were humans, unconnected to the Court. I wonder what they made of this, or if it was just another inexplicable art thing to them. King Baynson stood at one end of the room, leaning against a wall, arms up in a relaxed posture, his leisure suit open to the waist, showing off a truly spectacular amount of chest hair.
The Queen’s Knight- I didn’t remember his name offhand- stood in the center of the ring. He was not in the best of shape, I could see, somewhat portly and wearing a pair of glasses. He held a large two-handed sword in a somewhat awkward grip. He didn’t look like he knew what he was doing. He wasn’t wearing anything in the way of armor, just a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. He was a big guy, but Alfred was taller, broader shouldered. It didn’t look like a remotely even fight.
I looked aside, and noticed Queen Lifsdottir standing in a corner of the room, her gaze on the sky outside. The dark-skinned woman was short- no more than five feet tall, at most- and broad-shouldered, her arms well-muscled. She was nevertheless quite pretty, and her red hair was more than a bit striking. I stood next to her. “You going to start the fight?”
“I don’t want anything to do with it,” she murmured softly. I looked over my shoulder. Alfred had squared up with the Queen’s Knight, and King Baynson took out a silk handkerchief. He tossed it to the air, and the two fighters watched each other as it fluttered towards the ground. I noticed Jenny approaching the two of us, slowly, her eyes on the ring.
The handkerchief hit the ground. The Queen’s Knight moved suddenly, with a massive, overhand blow. He was faster than I would have expected from looking at him, but the blow was clumsy, artless, wild. Alfred stepped out from beneath it, letting the blow pass within a hairsbreadth of him.
“The blades look almost real, don’t they?” said one of the watchers standing at the edge of the ring nearest us. Alfred wasn’t using his illusions, I realized. Not in view of this many bystanders. That still wasn’t enough to disadvantage him, though.
“That was a killing blow,” said Jenny, her eyes narrowed. “Would you care to explain what is happening, Lifsdottir?”
I watched, frowning. The match was supposed to be point-based, ten minutes long, the winner at the end based on who got the most touches. Alfred had already landed one swift strike on the young man, a small bead of scarlet glittering on his hand, but the boy kept swinging relentlessly. More like he was swinging a bat than fighting with a sword, the blows clumsy and wild, but relentless.
“I didn’t plan any of this. I didn’t agree with any of it.”
“What are you trying to pull?” I asked, calmly, to hide the fact that I wanted to grab her bright red hair and shove her face through the heavy plate glass.
“It was King Baynson who suggested it. Poor boy, he thought it was a good idea, thought he could win-“
“It is a set-up,” said Jenny, frowning, still watching the fight. “He’s not fighting to win the contest. He’s fighting to kill Alfred.”
“That’s murder,” I hissed.
“Yes,” agreed the Queen. “If he succeeds, he will be judged. And harshly. He agreed to that. For my sake.” She sighed. “Foolish, overexcited boy. King Baynson’s plan was more direct. He hopes that Alfred will simply kill the boy, and show his bloodthirsty nature. Turn the tide of public opinion against himself, driving them to vote for his death.”
“So he’s been set up. Did King Baynson also have the idea of bribing or threatening people to avoid my story?” I asked, cheerily.
“No,” said the Queen. She didn’t elaborate. I frowned.
“You admit to trying to cheat this competition? To set my friend up to be murdered?” asked Jenny, an eyebrow raised.
“Of course she doesn’t,” I said, frowning at the competition. “We could make a fuss, try to contest this, but the boy’s awful at swordfighting. It’d be hard to prove that this is deliberate, rather than just his inexperience.” The boy let out a scream, slashing once, twice, three times- wide, hacking blows that could have taken off a limb if they struck home. The sword was solidly made. I would have guessed it was Queen Lifsdottir’s work. It was too heavy to parry without putting Alfred’s swords under strain, and his armor, good as it was, wouldn’t stop that heavy blade. He was moving back with each step, forced to constantly give ground.
Fighting is exhausting stuff. It drains you, fast. A fight like this, desperate, furious, it could exhaust even someone in the best shape of their life. Alfred was well trained, but I didn’t know if he could fend someone off for ten minutes in a life or death fight without risking killing them.
“We are simply supposed to watch?” asked Jenny, her right hand clenching. I could see the way her shoulders were tensing. I’d heard about her practice sessions, and while she’d never seemed particularly violent before, this whole trial had been winding her up, making her tense. She wasn’t herself. That’s probably why she didn’t see it. I chuckled, and Jenny turned towards me, frowning, as I began to laugh.
“Atina. This doesn’t make you enraged? I know how you feel when people violate the law.”
“It’s not that. It’s just- They’re really not good at this. The whole cheating thing. I mean, if Alfred WAS a murderer, he’s more than good enough to kill that kid and make it look like an accident. And counting on him to not be an overly noble showoff-“
There was a clash of blades, in the center of the ring. Alfred had waited for another wild overhand swing, and brought his own broadsword down atop the blade, swinging it down, and into the ground, trapping the blade’s tip in the rich loam. Alfred’s knee came up suddenly, extending into a snap kick to the sternum that sent the boy stumbling back, across the line of the mushrooms. As Alfred’s foot came down, it snapped the sword’s blade in half with contemptuous ease, leaving the hilt with barely half an inch of metal. He stepped forward, smartly, and offered his hand to the boy. The Queen’s Knight raised his hand as though to slap it, and then his eyes went to the Queen. His face red, his expression dark, his eyes on the ground, he took the hand and was helped to his feet. The two exchanged a couple of words, and then separated. The young man stormed out of the greenhouse, and I thought I saw tears running down his cheeks. As the announcer declared the forfeit, Alfred approached us.
“You know, I would never strike an unarmed woman,” said Alfred, smiling cheerily. “But it’s not often I’m forced to humiliate a lovestruck boy in front of an audience to save both of our lives. You really allowed that boy to step into the ring with me?”
Queen Lifsdottir didn’t answer him. There was a soft sound of clattering as pebbles were placed at the edge of the ring of mushrooms. There were quite a lot of them.
“Where’s Karl?” asked Jenny, frowning.
“He didn’t show up. We’re going to have to wing it.” I looked over at Jenny. “How’s your poetry feeling?”
“Barely adequate,” she said, and frowned. “But I have something prepared.”
“Jenny, look- I’m sorry I didn’t have you do this at the beginning, but-“
“You didn’t want me under that pressure.” She smiled. “I appreciate it, Atina. It was thoughtful. I would have felt very nervous these last few months had I known that the deciding factor of this would come down to me. It’s hard to get public speaking jitters with such short notice. Have we tallied the scores?”
“Eric’s painting and the performance were in your favor,” said Queen Lifsdottir, softly. “The story and the song were not. I apologize. Sometimes, it is the wrong audience.” She smiled at me. “I liked the story. It was very… tender. I would have had my Knight place a vote for it, but…”
“I understand. Survival and all. Hey, at least someone did.” I looked over at Jenny, and squeezed her shoulder. “I like your poetry, Jenny. And worst comes to worst…” I looked over at Alfred, and tugged gently on my gloves, feeling the familiar weight of the iron sand settling across my knuckles. The sap gloves were technically legal, and I could really hurt someone badly with one of them, especially if that person was an arrogant, unarmed fairy. “Well, worst will come to worst.”
“We’re not going to fight our way out of here, Atina,” said Alfred, softly. “They’re poets. Layabouts.”
“That kid just tried to gut you with a bastard sword, Alfred.”
“He was hardly very good at it.”
“You’re going to let them kill you? When they’ve practically admitted to cheating?”
“Well,” Alfred smiled. “I doubt I would. But I’m sure it won’t come to that.” He squeezed Jenny’s shoulder. She turned away from the window. The other mortals had been gently ushered out of the room. King Baynson stood in the center of the fairy ring, his expression smug. True to what I’d been told, he was dressed in a white leisure suit, a golden medallion around his neck, his blonde hair done up in an afro that had to be seen to be believed. Jenny approached him, looking calmer than she could possibly be feeling. If nothing else, she must have been blinded by the tastelessness of it all.
King Baynson opened his mouth, only for a cellphone to ring out suddenly. He glared down at the crowd, where Eric stepped back. “Apologies, Your Majesty,” he said, taking out the cellphone, checking it.
“In your own time, Grafsson, I’m sure the court would not wish to impose on your tweets,” said the King, smirking. “What news? Perhaps Lady Spears has had another embarrassing peccadillo?”
“Was that a Brittany Spears dig?” asked Alfred, softly.
“The man’s deeply out of touch,” I murmured. I was watching Eric. His expression was growing white. The young man looked up.
“Your majesty. Karl Baynson was found with his throat cut. He’s in intensive care. If I may- A brief recess in the trial-“
The King’s face had turned suddenly waxy. His amused, haughty expression had dripped off his face. An old man in a silly outfit stood silently in the circle, unsure what to do. Jenny stepped forward, and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“This is awful news. Let’s put aside this trial. Go be with your son.”

A tad bigger update because hey, it is the holidays, I'm getting fatter and don't wanna move so all I can do is write. I'm starting to juggle quite a few characters and situtations going on simultaneously here, so expect longer and longer chapters from here onwards (this one clocks in at 4k words with the five parts before it being 8.5k.)
As always, any and all critique is more than welcome and I hope you enjoy the read!
System: Alpha Pegasi
Colonial ship 2099 - ‘Old Faithful’ – 1st Drifter wave diplomatic sanctum
Solar Standard Time: 0652-21-06-2251
The fast development of space brought with it certain… issues. The advancement of the Alcubierre bubble drives, combined with the production times and the bureaucratic stalling before the first interstellar colonisation attempts resulted in the first wave of the colonists being sent out to Procyon and Sirius on 10c drives while 50c commercial drives were being developed for smaller craft. The resulting confusion upon the encounter of fugitives, explorers and adrenaline junkies resulted in several false reports of 1st contact.
Public dissatisfaction with the manner of handling of interstellar colonisation by the first truly unified Terran Planetary government resulted in several corporations competing on the knife’s edge against each other in a bid for the next wave of colonists, this time directed towards the galactic core, on the long mission for Alpha Pegasi. Two companies met the rigorous demands set forward by the Planetary Government. One was selected, but went under due to an unfortunate set of natural disasters. The colonists, dismayed by the prospect of remaining on an increasingly overpopulated Earth, turned to the other company and set out without even so much as notifying the government. Any further attempts into colonisation in the general direction of the Core were from thereon abandoned. That was the first time a Drifter Fleet was created – a group of humans ever so disdained with the failures of government and society, breaking off almost all contact with the rest of Humanity. Lone, drifter fleets, technology based on reverse-engineering scrap or trade of raw resources.
It was not a friendly world out in the Drifter territories. Actual solid ground underneath one’s feet was scarce due to a lack of organised terraforming efforts, making the majority of life concentrated on and around space stations constructed upon the carcasses of old, repurposed colonist vessels. Old Faithful was the first to arrive at Alpha Pegasi, and as such, became a symbol of cooperation amongst the drifters. It is little wonder that it remains as one of the seven sanctuary stations where violence is not tolerated regardless of the bounty one has on their heads or their crimes. A place for everybody to be heard out and for responsibilities to be delegated. The only places even resembling any political centralism, and today they were bustling with activity.
Built in the staple brain-numbing grey of all Terran space construction, with the unrefined, sharp edges of early space construction, the ‘Old Faithful’ was a monstrosity of its own, a generic cylinder being the last trace of its original construction design, three miles in length and half a mile in diameter, gravity simulated by the out-dated principle of a rotating station. The shearing stresses of such a station on the old steel constructs could be heard ‘as if Satan himself was cracking knuckles’, the denizens often remarked.
In such a decrepit place, a symbol of the level of development across all Drifter space, the twenty-seven most powerful drifter families on this side of the Terran Union space and the three heads of the Serpentis drifters sat down to discuss the issue of finding a single, joint voice. A surprisingly civil and quiet discussion thus far. Note the thus far, because at this point in time, a rather unsuspecting individual entered the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen. I believe you need to hear me out.”
The last silent sentences were left hanging in the air as thirty pairs of bloodshot, bloodthirsty eyes all started to glare at the intruder.
“I will take that as a permission to speak. Let me introduce myself. I’m your modern Magellan, latest Alcubierre, the Einstein of our time, the Grand Lord Frederick of the Galactic Core. But you can call me Fred.”
Mumbles could be heard. The rumours regarding the family of an insane engineer regularly FTL jumping around the gravity minefield of the galactic core and the plethora of black holes were well-known as a boogeymen story told to anybody attempting to flee through the Malik Family’s belts at the border between uninhabitable Core space and the Drifter space.
“See, when we present all of humanity, I presume we want to present our best. I ask you, what is it that you can bring to the table that the Coreworlders or the Colonists haven’t discovered already or can mine out or produce in larger quantities than we can? Is there a scientific discovery that their Godless Technocrats cannot mine out? If you said no to the last one you are gravely wrong.”
The head of the Malik family could be heard to slowly but patiently rise.
“There has been no reported traffic between the rest of the drifter space and the Galactic Core in years. By what right do you claim your lordship over the Core?”
“My claim lies on the right of being there first, and based on my latest discoveries, by right of force, as well.” More murmurs could be heard. The next to speak up was the Serpentis Admiral and the de facto representative and leader of the entire Serpentis drifter fleet.
“What do you want from this council?”
“I want to be the representative sent to the First Contact.”
“Based on what premise, exactly?”
“Based on the fact that I have more firepower at my command than all of the families here present.”
Absolute silence fell across the room once again.
“That is a serious accusation. Implying you are who you are pretending to be, and I still haven’t received any notification of FTL travel through my space-“
“See, father Malik, this is where you are gravely wrong. Tell me, when was the last time you asked yourselves why is the Alcubierre drive so inefficient?”
“I beg your pardon? We have drives capable of several thousand times the speed of light on reactors only-“
“There you go again. See, in my travels across the core, I have had a plenty of time to dabble in ideas. Long buried ideas, ones that you would call me insane for, that the Technocracy would proclaim their brightest minds insane for ever researching. Why restrict yourselves to multiples of speed of light, when you can permanently bend space? Father Malik, the reason you haven’t been notified of my passing through your space is because I haven’t done so. I haven’t used an Alc drive for several months before having to dock with this station. I am the Lord of the Galactic core based on the fact that I am in control of a means to open stable wormholes.”
A shit-eating grin upon Fred’s face, and a look of abject horror on the thirty heads of most powerful humans outside Terran Union space framed by the dim fluorescent blue lights immortalized the moment. After a much, much shorter deliberation – if nothing else, then for the sake of appearing less intimidated by a lone man classifiable on the Kardashev scale as a 2.4, if not more – the council grimly agreed to grant the madman the rights of representing Drifters upon First Contact.
“Oh, one last thing, gents. I hope one of you don’t mind giving me a ride to Terran space? I wouldn’t want to let them see our ace up the sleeve right away, now, would I?
System: Eta Ursae Majoris
UMS Mercy – Engineering department – Designated First Contact vessel
Solar Standard Time: 1104-21-06-2251
“Last arrival coming in. I guess that is the drifter delegate, though we still have no fucking clue who got sent. I expected that Perez guy?”
Mercy was as hectic as if just jumping into a crisis evac. Engineers and techs milling left and right, hotfixes to allow for the refurbished medical rooms to host the massive computing arrays, a stellar anchor thrown to pull more power than even the gargantuan UMS class shipboard reactor could provide, and in the midst of all of this – an irrelevant monk from the Lacaillan theocracy, a young member of the Procyon diplomat corps, and now also the self-proclaimed Lord of the Galactic Core, Fred – were busy sitting down, doing exactly nothing. Well, at least until now.
“This is Engineering to Six, Six, do you copy?”
“Jinn has the bridge. Six is catching some shuteye. Shoot.”
“Incoming message from Tau-17. I know this is supposed to be for the diplomats only, but by necessity we will hear it first, and I think you need to hear this.”
Shit.
“I’ll fetch Six.”
“Roger that. Engineering out.”
Shit, shit, shit.
“Formation control. What is the status of all squads deployed?”
“All vessels accounted for and ready to scatter and jump back all the way to Sol if need be. Well…”
“Don’t do this to me. Who is out there?”
“Well, sir, the diplomat delegation requested a shuttle to get a closer look of the floating-“
“Dump them.”
Etanolov half-skipped onto the bridge at that point, all six-foot-five of him, rumbling along the floor as he did, in the atrociously bland grey Navy uniform.
“Who tilted you, Jinn?”
“Honourable delegations of Coreworlders and Colonists can go fuck themselves. Look at this.”
Said tossed a data pad to Etanolov before turning around to send a flurry of commands across the fleet, initiating chaotic evasive manoeuvres in order to ensure they give no warning to the, by now sizeable, alien fleet stationed on the other side of the star.
‘We are representatives of the seven-species Alliance. You are hereby embraced as the 8th member. Your admission fee will include ceding the mining operations unlawfully established around the star A12-91-1, as well as additional full reparation of the Kr’Tzz exploration vessel “Trn’Ak” and payment for the damages caused by the loss of the irreplaceable explorer crew lost in the unfortunate incident incited by your side. Furthermore, we expect dry dock maintenance of our vessels and your full aid in the construction of alliance FTL highways which allow civilised FTL travel through this barren wasteland of a galactic arm. Non-compliance will be met with termination.’
Etanolov silently trembled, ever so slightly.
“Jinn. Get me a secure commlink with Cole.”
“Diplomacy all the way?”
“I think it is time we put the Fleets to work. Evacuate the civvies, make sure the diplomats and the station members are out in one piece.”
“Will get back to you on that. Uhh, Six, we have a problem. Well. Two separate problems.” “Shoot.”
“Two of the diplomats that went around the star? Unaccounted for and all that? Yeah, they were turning to jump away from designations Tau-13 and Tau-14 and got shot down. Assumed laser-based weaponry. This is the imagery from a relay in the mining sector AJ-59.”
The tape played out at 0.1 real-time. The small, diplomatic white and unarmoured shuttle could be seen to rapidly fire all the manoeuvring Casimir drives, only to start glowing red-hot then white hot in quick succession. “Refocus on Tau-13. Do we have a better visual?”
The same time point reference marked the start of the recording being played. Tau-13, thus-far identified to be a ‘Trepliket’ vessel, appearing ragged and worn-down by intense travel - extraordinarily unusual for any military-class vessel – rapidly spun around a turret, only to appear to focus it on the fleeing diplomatic vessel. “Right. That constitutes an act of war in my books. Fuck the diplomats. Where is that commlink with Cole?” “Up in 15 seconds. Six? One more thing. The third diplomat was in Mercy’s Engineering. Right now, he is nested in the station’s engineering, and he is not responding to the emergency evac calls.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Fuck what, Etanolov? Sitrep.”
“Aliens are hostile, repeat- hostile. All Terran Union diplomatic personnel is presumed dead. Drifter delegate is on the Big Docks, locked himself in the engineering, isn’t answering evac calls. If he goes down, Drifters might literally declare war. I’m sending Mercy back and preparing to hit-and-run, drag designations Tau nine through twenty away from the system. They are the fuckers with the biggest reactor outputs and are clustering around Tau-17.” Now it was Cole’s turn to curse.
“You are right, Six. Fuck indeed. And the fuckers had access to FLT-net all this time?”
“Yep. With all due respect sir, what is your ETA? They explicitly stated that they want-“
“They want to strip-mine this for heavy elements. Can’t let that happen. Consider your combat plan approved. Black Four is there in a minute. At that point they can’t match us in tonnage, though time will tell how advanced is their weaponry. Black Three and Nine are prepping for a mass jump around the system to cut off escape to Bootis. Auxiliaries will come in with the Fourth and will drag around an FTL-net to cut off any avenues of escape or reinforcement. They won’t leave without spilling blood or leaving intel for us to scrape through. Give them hell, Six.”
System: A12-91-1
Trepliket Bombard Ship designation 917-754 (Human Tau-13)
Solar Standard Time: 1106-21-06-2251
The Trepliket Hive 917 is the strongest mind of their newest colony and technically still has the potential to grow out to cover the majority of the planet, given the short-sightedness of the remaining hives. However, right now, a large part of the Hive’s resources was being poured into the maintenance of a long-range FTL link with a patrol ship scrounged up for an escort mission in the interest of the Zobafin Alliance. Apparently a Kr’Tzz research ship got lucky and found a new member to bear the burden of Zobafin dominance of this galactic arm. The members of their military were thus far hiding on the other side of the star, communicating through the relays of their advanced mining ships. Hiding in fear, most likely.
After daring to send yet another scout, the universal Contact message was finally assembled in their primitive mammalian tongue and broadcast both through the relays and to the shuttle to ensure the request is heard. After the initial entrance fee, the membership duties would have to be allocated as well, naturally. The Hive felt mirth at this thought, and let all the units slow down while the irritating apes composed a formal acceptance. Something glimmered at the end of the consciousness. The Hive felt the FTL routes close off. The A12-83-4 was being closed off, as if there was a massive power shortage. The communication still being open, the Hive inquired about the state of affairs, yet only a garbled response indicating everything is operative came back. Shortly afterwards, it registered the wake of a massive fleet encircling the Alliance vessels, deploying an unidentifiable disturbance that was almost certainly bouncing gravitons around to disable the FTL highway.
Opening a line to the Trepliket frigates – a class of recently repurposed cargo ships – designations 917- 749 through 753, it broadcast a message of alert. The ships soon broke off the biological power-lines connecting them, allowing for autonomous action of each of the vessels, under the reduced neural potential of the minor Hive constructs operating the frigates.
The rest of the Alliance was mostly zeroing in on a series of vectors towards A12-83-4 to open up a hole in the fleet of the apes, to open up a quick FTL getaway. The Zobafin in particular were organising all of the present Bomber-class vessels into the spearhead of the formation to ensure word of this resistance came through to the Council itself. As they started up a sub-light bubble towards the designated vectors, two larger fleets, each of their vessels containing reactors an order of magnitude greater than what a bomber could produce. The bubbles immediately reversed direction, seeking shelter behind the fractured, semi-mined asteroids.
Moments later, the Hive construct 754 was triggered by the backside scanners of its vessel registering the dormant fleet in the system moving in to engage. The large, presumably bomber class vessel was gone on all sensors. The mining control station appeared to be empty.
Odd little creatures. Sacrificing battlefield firepower to evacuate individual units. One life signal was still emitting, though. If they valued life so highly, what would they do to preserve it?
Units throughout the ship operated as one, directing a quick FTL hitch in the direction of the station, to bring it close enough to activate the laser batteries. If they valued their individual little units so highly, why, it was a matter of inflicting maximum damage at this phase. The jump sequence was initiated.
Then the explosions started.
System: Eta Ursae Majoris
Big Bear’s Big Docks – Engineering
Solar Standard Time: 1109-21-06-2251
Lord Frederick – sorry, Fred – was having the time of his life.
“Why don’t they make the cute little red buttons anymore? What is it with the new Terran tech that makes them do everything through holograms? Oh, they are moving. No, no, I’m not letting the Navy have all the fun. Why, if the drones mined out a ship without self-destructing… no, I need the big red buttons. Where are the GUI design controls? Ah. Fucking 9th generation 3D holokit. Why do they keep fixing things that aren’t broken? There, this should make a nice, big, red button…”
Fred was still rambling his ass off as the small alien fleet started moving outwards on an escape vector. Then more Navy vessels appeared.
“Ooh boy they brought in the cavalry, didn’t they? My, my, they must feel really important showing off like this. I bet they had them stationed somewhere nearby. Now, I have my big red button. Oh, there is a smart fella. Smart alien. That’s it. Turn towards the inactive mining fieds. Where did you go? Oh, nice FTL-vectoring. What a bubble. Smooth.”
The station’s sensors started displaying static.
“Ooh, the fireworks are starting! I guess the Aliens aren’t as smart as I figured they would be. Now, where did my little friend go? Ah. He wants to fry me like a shrimp, huh? Well, that wouldn’t be fun, now, would it? Come closer, just a little closer…”
With an absolutely maddening grin, Fred punched a big, red button he spent the last two minutes rigging to activate a semiautomatic script guiding the XJ-18 drone sector towards a specific parametric set of readings that just happened to match the Trepliket 917-754 bomber, with a proximity self-destruct to drive the antimatter power-cells.
And nobody could wipe the shit-eating grin off his face for the next week.
System: Eta Ursae Majoris
Fire team Phoenix – 4th Black, 2nd Detach, Fast response team Charlie
Solar Standard Time: 1109-21-06-2251
Team Charlie was breaking up into five separate fire teams. Forming a three-dimensional concave, taking in the projected maximum and effective ranges of the alien vessels based on the assumption their main armaments would include laser batteries, and leaving sufficient manoeuvring space to dodge incoming fire, fire team Phoenix, as the ‘point’ of the concave, let loose the first volley of particle cannons. The old doctrine of using supercharged particles in order to bleed momentum wasn’t that old, but seemed ancient by the standards of human 3-D warfare. However, it appeared that the Aliens weren’t ready for this.
“Contact. Charlie, cover vector one-niner offset seven-two negative. Tau-14 taking bleeding shot. Tau-15 reactor disabled. Six, Tau-13 is gone. I repeat, Tau-13 is a goner.”
“Roger that, Phoenix. I’m not scanning debris. Confirm hit on Tau-13?”
“Hold on, Six. We have… sir, Tau-13 is behind us. Jumped off to the Docks, is holding bubble on sublight, approaching to set target on-“
“Phoenix, break off the engagement and pursue 13. Charlie Main is taking point.”
Etanolov silently cursed on his bridge.
“Jinn, fix my concave.”
“On it, sir.”
Etanolov prided himself on being the first one to notice unorthodox and unconventional uses of the tools he had at his disposal. To be outwitted on a tactical level by an opponent mentally retarded on the strategic level was infuriating. He couldn’t help but watch as the alien vessel, designated Tau-13, closed upon the big docks, right into an unsuspecting swarm of-
Swarm of drones?
“Scanners. Focus me a side scree on the back sensors. Route power. What the living fuck is that in front of Tau-13?”
From this distance, Etanolov couldn’t make out the individual shapes, but it seemed like a debris field. He could see by the energy signatures that it wasn’t ordinary scrap.
“Phoenix, abort. Hold distance at [0.5AU]. Give me a better visual.”
“Roger.”
He intently stared at the screen, until he could see the first drones – yes, those were definitely mining drones – approach the ship and-
White static filled the sensors.
“Phoenix, do you have a visual? What the fuck is going on?”
“Four minute lag on visual. Relaying through active mining drones- sir, the system is under an override. We can’t access the sector XJ-18. Flipping through adjacent sectors… Hold on. Holy fuck, sir. The drones are last gen, anti-mat power cells. XJ-18 is rigged to proximity fuse and on course for Tau-13. Consider target eliminated, sir. Docks secure.”
Mikhail couldn’t help but allow himself a sigh of relief. Said shot him a knowing look, quickly followed by a grin.
“Told you he is bat-shit crazy, Six.”
“Fuck off to managing the fight, Jinn.”
System: Outskirts of Eta Ursae Majoris
Nemesis, flagship of the 3rd Black fleet – High Admiral Cole’s Office and quarters
Solar Standard Time: 1131-21-06-2251
“With that being said, the elimination of the enemy fleet is at 97%. Only two vessels still have functional sentience, and one more has its on-board computing and databases preserved. The FTL-spike deployed by the Detachments three through eleven shut off even the FTL-commlink they were maintaining throughout the length of the negotiation. Recommendations for acknowledging distinguished action are in the report. That includes the drifter delegate, self-proclaimed-“
“Self-proclaimed or not, I don’t care about his title. What did he do? How did that maggot contribute to combat? What drifters is he a part of, anyways?”
“That is why I wanted to state his title, sir. He claims to live in the Galactic Core itself. He rigged the XJ-18 sector drones to a proximity fuse on one of the two surviving enemy vessels, target designation Tau-13, self-identified Trepliket Hive 917 construct 754. The sentience on-board seems to be… willing to negotiate with us.”
“I will leave the ‘negotiations’ part for when delegate Santicola comes here. Until then, ensure that its basic survival needs are met, disable any potential FTL-level tech onboard its vessel and ensure their so-called ‘Alliance’ gets no intel on what just happened. Anything else?”
“One final item. The other vessel we captured… well. It apparently has several members of the species which founded their ‘Alliance’ onboard.”
“So, we hit the intel jackpot. Very well. Scrounge any and all existing data for their exact FTL entry vectors. Prepare the Ninth and detachments four through nine for a short trip to Bootis. Send the 3rd detachment as a scout squad. Cut the FTL [0.3ly] short of Bootis. Send word to the heads of the Union, I will assemble a report by 1300. I think we need to prepare to defend this system.”
“Very well. Sir.”
Cole returned the salute, allowing himself a heavy sigh only after his subordinate left the room. Why was bureaucracy still a thing, again?
Cole couldn’t help but mutter ‘Fuck Earth and its democracy’ before starting the report.

Previous Chapter
Chapter 1
Terra:
As Terra entered the Speaker’s chambers, she saw an Awoken warlock against the far wall, reading something off a holopad. He glanced up momentarily at her entrance, but seemed to dismiss her as he went back to the pad.
“Guardian Terra. At last you have arrived. I trust your voyages have kept you safe from harm?”
Terra faced the Speaker as he looked up from his tome. He spoke with an unyielding calm, already making Terra nervous. It was difficult to read him. The fact that he kept his face masked didn’t help matters. Still, she played her part. She gave him a short bow, “All is well Speaker. Thank you for your concern.”
“With all due respect, if she had come to harm, she would not be here right now.” The Warlock spoke without looking up.
“Ah yes, but sometimes, it is not physical harm that can cripple a guardian. Often times, wounds run deeper than one would think,” The Speaker said as he neared Terra. Unconsciously, she stepped back. She wouldn’t be surprised if he knew. At this point her speech had to have given it away. Someone as wise as him would have figured it out eventually, “Tell me, guardian. Is all truly well?”
“I-I...yes.” Terra hesitated. The Speaker nodded, his gaze lingering on her a moment longer before retreating.
“We are still waiting for one more. Please, feel free to make yourself comfortable.”
“Technically, we’re waiting on one more and his ghost.” The warlock muttered, barely audible to hunter, and she didn’t know if the speaker heard it at all. “Though it would be nice if we knew why we were waiting.”
“In due time, Guardian Haytham. This is a matter best suited for all to hear together. There are many paths ahead of us. Many of which one cannot endure alone. Only by combined light can you illuminate the path laid before you.”
“If that is what it takes.” He responded, somewhat mollified, but obviously still a bit annoyed by the delay.
A big, sturdy looking guy wearing a hoodie and jeans stepped into the room looking around. “Damn, all this shit never ceases to amaze me.”
The speaker clasped his hands together. “Good, all of you have arrived.”
The man looked over at Terra and the warlock dubbed Haytham. “Alright, who are these folk and is one of them a robot?”
“Hmph, have you never seen an Exo or Awoken before?” The Warlock tucked the pad into his coat as he stepped away from the wall. “And I take it by your stunning intellect and size you must be a titan- which makes one of each type of guardian here.” He looked at the speaker, clearly waiting for the explanation.
“You noticed. Very well. Now that you are all here, we can finally get to the heart of the matter,” The Speaker paced about before them, motioning to each of them as he spoke, “Titan, Hunter, Warlock, the three pillars that stand between light and dark. Each powerful in their own right. Together however, they become an unstoppable force. During these trying times, every member must stand united. The reason I called you all here is simple. I wish for each of you to work together on a very serious matter.”
“A strike?” The Warlock asked, before shaking his head, seemingly answering his own question. “No, a strike wouldn’t require you to meet us personally, nor would you search us specifically.” His voice dropped as he continued to mutter to himself almost inaudibly.
“Very astute. All three of you have made a mark on those around you. Word travels that you three hold a very special reputation. Something we could use now more than ever. The world shifts and changes based on your actions, whether you are aware of it or not. That...tenacity is required. On the moon, there is a grave. Six of them. All belong to guardians who vanished in the line of duty. I’ve sent others to investigate but none returned. I fear the worst.”
“Six guardians, or six teams?” Haytham asked.
“Six guardians. By my understanding, they too were highly skilled. For them to vanish one by one is...unprecedented.”
“So you hope the three of us can do together what individuals could not?”
“With the proper instruction. And another team. First, you will need to complete, as Titans will say before a great workout, a warm up. There is a servitor here on Earth that needs to be taken down. It harbors terrible power and hides in a place others have named, The Devil’s Lair.”
There was a moment of silence before the Titan spoke. “So, why am I here? I have been a guardian for ‘bout a week. Not enough to establish myself a reputation.”
Behind the titan, the warlock facepalmed.
“Even an ember still burns if it can still be stoked. Although you may think of yourself as such, the light within you is unmistakable. The Traveler sees it within you. Within all of you,” The Speaker said, “And by its will, and from this day forth, you three shall be united as humanity’s defenders. The stalwart harbingers of the Traveler’s light. There are great changes coming, guardians. I have faith that you will succeed in your endeavours. Go to the Devil’s Lair, find and destroy Sepkis Prime, and once you do, your door will open.”
Kal raised his hand. “Uh, can I get something better than what I have? The best weapon I have is from a green encryption.”
“What type of weapons do you prefer?” The Warlock asked. “I have a green Pulse Rifle in my vault that I don’t really use.”
“That oughta work. I can use that and my shotgun… Also, are we jus’ suppose to go in separate ships or carpool cause I can’t really fit anyone in my ship.”
“They aren’t designed to house multiple guardians outside of emergencies.” The warlock sounded annoyed now.
The Speaker turned to Terra, who stared blankly down at the ground. She absently thumbed the hammer of one of her handcannons, “Guardian...you do know the solution, yes?”
“...Unfortunately,” Terra sighed. She spared a glance at the other two, “There’s a ship in the hangar under my name. It’s been gathering dust for years. An Olympian Class transport ship, ‘The Legacy’. It has more than enough space for all of us.”
Kal nodded his head confidently. “‘Alight, dibs on top bunk if there are bunk beds.”
“You have your assignment, guardians. May the Traveler’s light guide you.” The Speaker bid them as he returned to his tome.
“Why exactly must we share the same ship and not just ‘carpool’ as he suggested?” Haythem looked at them both. Terra shrugged
“He must have his reasons.” she speculated.
The warlock’s ghost appeared next to him, black and blue. “PERhaps he wishes to force you to SPEnd time with each other and BOnd as a team.”
“Yeah...sure,” Terra muttered, returning her gaze back to the floor.
Kal put his arms around the both of them with a smile on his face. “Alright, lets go save the world.”
“Remove your hand from my shoulder before I scorch it off.” The warlock stated, a ball of orange Light in his hand. Terra sunk her shoulders, feeling very uncomfortable from being so close to everyone.
“Ah, c’mon. I can already see a bright future ahead of us. Hehe, get what I did there?”
The Warlock touched his hand to the Titan’s, and the latter yanked his off of him, shaking it as it smoked. “Amusing.” He said sarcastically. “Let us get this over with then.”
The titan turned to Terra and whispered in her ear. “Get a load of batman over here?”
Terra excused herself from his grip, brushing her shoulder off as she walked out without a word. If she had to spend another minute with them, she would have gone insane.
Marvin:
Those two are being compared to me? The Warlock thought as he turned in his bounties, nodding to the robotic handler. I may not be as high level as some, but did the Titan not say he had been doing this a mere week? And the Hunter- she refused to meet anyone’s gaze. Nobody that timid should be a guardian, Light or not. She’d just be a liability.
“It’s not too LAte to try talking the SPEaker into replacing you with someone else.” Lothos’ voice whispered in his ear, inaudible to the others passing by.
He shook his head as he passed an emptier area of the tower. “Were it the vanguards, perhaps. But questioning the Speaker would only cause trouble- either I’d be questioning the Traveler, which could spread and cause catastrophe, or I’d be questioning the Speaker’s ability, which could get me sent somewhere more dangerous with even less competent people as revenge.”
“...I do not THink the Speaker would be type to go for REvenge.”
Marvin dismissed him with a wave of his hand as he walked towards the hanger, seeing the Hunter already waiting for him. At least the Titan should actually have his armor on now- that other getup was utterly undignified for a Guardian.
He looked around and saw the Titan walking out of the Vanguard’s area with new armor that seemed to have a wolf pelf hanging off it like a very short poncho. “Hey, Haytham!”
On second thought, I prefered the hoodie. “Do you need something, or are you simply going to try to make idle conversation with me?” He responded as he walked towards the ship.
“Ya’ said you had a pulse rifle for me.” He reminded, pulling out a new banner and tying it to his belt.
“Lightbulb?”
The ghost glared at him for a moment as he reappeared, before turning to the Titan and materializing the pulse rifle from their inventory into his hand.
He looked at it a moment before slipping it on his back and starting off toward the ship docks. “Wanna walk with me to the Legacy?”
Of course not, simpleton. “Very well.”
“No offense, but something tells me you're not enjoying this…”
“What would give you that impression?” The warlock smirked, creating another scorch ball in his hand.
Kal raised an eyebrow at him before sighing. “Look, I get that you think you are better than us but remember. You’re always one swing from a broken body part.”
“As you are one throw from a bolt grenade.” He made the orb disappear. “But as we are on the same side, perhaps we should save it for the fallen.” Especially since we’ll be on the same ship with little room to avoid him should I incur his wrath. He still well remembered the first time he’d taken a Titan’s fist to the face in the crucible. Or for that matter, the Hunter’s blade...she seems a bit timid for something like that though, so I am far less worried about her turning on me...still, no point in alienating either of them pointlessly.
“Agreed. Look, back in my day we were a tight knit unit and I am completely sure we can do that too.”
“Back in your day?” He looked at the titan’s face. “Perhaps I am not as proficient as telling the age of humans as Awoken, but you do not appear to of an advanced age.”
“I was dead for... I think Sal-E said two-hundred years.”
He blinked. “I did not think a revival was still viable after such a stretch of time.” But I wonder what that says of his skill? Things were far different back then.
“Yeah, I can honestly say that y’all aren’t as friendly as we used to be. Titan’s now don’t even have chapters now a days.”
“Times have changed.” The warlock said with a shrug. “The city and Tower are still far less...formal, than the Reef.”
“Uh, ya’ mean that thing that the Awoken took off to?”
“Yes.” He said curtly. “Did you typically work with other classes, or only titans?” He changed the subject.
“On occasion. Mostly it was armies of Titans ranks fighting to not falter on the front lines. Average day, I lost three friends.”
“Was that before revival was discovered then? Or were dark zones more prevalent?”
“Revival is brand new from what I understand. The speaker made it sound like the Traveler just created ghosts.”
“That’s right, we have been around for about seven years.” The titan’s ghost agrees.
“Has it been only SEven? Odd, the time I have spent DEAling with MARvin seems far LONger.” Lothos appeared, bumping into the warlock’s side with as close to a chuckle as his voice could manage.
“Took me all that time to find Kal here. That’s the only reason I know.”
“They did not assSSIgn you a guardian befOre that?”
“They assigned me him and due to the way records were kept, I had to search eighteen battlefields to find him.”
“Such dedication is admirable.” The warlock glanced at his own ghost. “And yet lightbulb here complained just because I made him set and plot the course for the ship rather than doing it myself.”
“And you are INCApable of using my actual name. You do not USe that ‘nickname’ on other ghosts.”
“True, but then again you do speak and act… different.” Sal-E said.
“I suppOSe. I am not entirely sure WHy that is.”
“Well, your vocal measures seem to be broken. You keep putting emphasis on strange syllables or letter combinations.”
“NO? ReaLLY? I did not notice unTIl NOw!”
“I’m impressed lightbulb- that almost sounded sarcastic.” He shrugged and glanced at the other two. “He seems to materialize things slightly faster than other ghosts, so as far as I can guess it’s a processing error of some sort- too much processing power in one spot and not enough in another...Or I was unlucky enough to end up with a defective model.”
“Or maybe it’s because you are just so horrible to him, he can’t work properly.” Sal-E angrily pointed.
Kal put her hand on her and took her in his hand. “Ah, leave ‘em alone Sal-E. It’s not our problem.”
“To be honest I’ve Gottten used to it ANyway.” The ghost floated in an approximation of a shrug before disappearing again as they arrived at the ship.
Marvin turned just in time to see the Shipwright and Terra standing next to each other in front of a giant ship.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that baby,” Amanda Holliday mused. Next to her stood Terra, both watching as the hangar bay doors slid open.
As the hangar bay doors opened, one by one the overhead lights flicked on. Inside stood a ship of impressive size, easily bigger than a Fallen dropship. Its black and white paint job glinted in the bright lights. Just as the doors fully opened, the engines flared to life, the booming noise reverberating in the small hangar.
“She’s been locked up in there for years, but she still purrs like the day she was made.” Amanda said.
The hunter appeared to be staring at it, though Marvin was unable to tell what passed through her robotic brain, face all but expressionless to him.
“It must have taken some time to save up the glimmer to purchase this.” He said as they half glanced their way.
“Yes...it did,” Terra said in a near whisper. Gaia materialized next to her, nodding in agreement.
“I-I missed it,” she said.
“It is an impressive model.” He said, being unusually honest by his standards. Though why do I sense something beyond simple nostalgia from them?...I doubt they would tell directly if asked. It will probably come out eventually if it actually is more than mere paranoia on my part.
Kal put a hand on Terra’s shoulder and gave her a confident shake before stepping past toward the ship. “Get a load of this thing?”
“No, we were all staring at the sunset behind it and didn’t notice the ship.” Marvin said sarcastically, especially since it was about noon.
“I was talking to the little lady, not you.” Kal said, shaking his head.
“Why? Did you think she would be distracted by the sunset as well?”
“No, I don’t think she is a total ass like you.”
“I doubt she would be.”
“Okay, then I vote that she is the leader.” Kal said, putting his arm around her and pulling her so that she was between the two of them.
“...Wait, when you were pointing out the ship, did you mean little lady as in your ghost, or as in the person who owns the ship you were pointing out to her?”
“The person who looks like she is the most impartial between the three of you.” Sal-E said, flying up and looking at Marvin in anger.
Marvin smirked at her. “I think I might actually prefer she be in charge- it saves me from having to make the decisions for a while, and it stops he and I from not being able to follow the others orders...unless you would rather not?” He turned from the ghost to the Hunter. “Personally, I don’t know that a leader is necessarily needed, but between my other points and the fact that it is your ship…”
Terra took a step forward, placing a hand on the hull of her ship. She turned to the team, giving a solemn nod, “If you wish, then I suppose we have no choice but to accept.”
We?....must mean her and the ghost as a team.
“Good, now like I said. Dibs on the top bunk.” Kal took off and ran into the ship, shortly afterward there was a loud bang. “Damn it. Why the hell is there a pot hanging in the middle of the kitchen?”
“...Where else would it be?” Marvin wondered aloud. Also, why does she still have a kitchen in her ship if she is an Exo? They don’t eat anything...wait, do they eat?...Blast, now I’ll be wondering that all day!
Terra was last to board, shutting the entrance ramp behind her. Ahead was the kitchen where most of the noise was taking place. Not knowing the layout of the ship, Marvin simply followed her. Inside, they found Kal holding his forehead and rubbing it where a big red ding began to appear.
Marvin wanted to make some comment about ‘a pan not hurting’ as much as a Titan’s fist or a Warlock’s scorch...but then decided saying that was a good way to get a fist to his own face.
“Ouch, just ouch.” He said, sitting into one of the chairs and looking around. “It’s at least bigger than ships in my day.”
“The kitchen is fully stocked with ration packs. Help yourself if you’re ever hungry. There are two dormitories on the port and starboard sides of the ship with one bed each. Make yourselves at home. We need to make final preparations and plot a course.” Terra said as she immediately headed for the cockpit with Gaia trailing behind her.
“Do you have a preference for which side is whose?” He asked the still sore-looking Titan.
“I like the left.” He shrugged.
“Fine by me.” He said, heading for the other side of the ship, and wondering what he’d gotten himself into. Neither seem like they’d be on my level...but then I haven’t seen either in combat. It’s possible they’ll surprise me...that, or they’ll both die for good and I’ll get out of having to work with them. So there’s no real downside that I can see...aside from not being deaf.
Kal:
Kal rubbed his head and felt his anger boiling at this point, though he was trying to get it under control. “Uh, I am gonna kill that asshole. I just know it.”
Sal-E floated in from behind him, looking him in the eyes. “No, you won’t. Or else I will make you wait a full minute before even thinking of reviving you.”
“I waited two-hundred years. Do you really think that I can’t wait a minute?”
“... Fair enough.” She began floating the way that the hunter walked. “Lets go see what Terra is doing.” He shrugged and stood up. “Might as well. Not like I have anything else to do.”
He made his way to the cockpit and took the copilot seat. “How’s it going Terra?”
Terra regarded him with a curt nod, keeping her eyes firmly focused on the flight controls in front of her.
“This rig not have an autopilot or something?” He asked, looking at the controls.
“She does, but I prefer flying manually. I can’t afford to get rusty on my flying,” Terra remarked as she pulled the ship free from the hangar and towards the sky.
He reached out and touched something that looked like a radio. “This thing got tunes?”
“No,” Terra replied bluntly.
“I can fix that.” Kal leaned back and looked at Sal-E. “Mind playing some of my music darlin’?”
She gave the ghost equivalent of a sigh before turning on his traveling music. “First song is called ‘Living on a Prayer’.”
Terra kept her eyes trained on the display in front of her, a frown forming on her face.
“C’mon Terra, this is a good song. Whoo, we’re half way there. Yeah, Livin’ on a prayer! Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear!” He looked at her, trying to stop her frowning.
“Gaia,” Terra said. Her ghost appeared next to her and nodded to her silent request. The ghost fired a beam of light to the side of Terra’s head before retreating, “If I had to listen to that again, I’d blow my own head off.”
“You… you turned off your ears… didn’t you?” He asked, getting up from his seat. Terra didn’t respond.
He lowered his head and walked off back into the ship, Sal-E turned off the music when it was apparent that he wasn’t enjoying it anymore. “These guys are obviously not here to make friends.”
“You’re telling me.” He answered to Sal-E, stepping into his room. The room was considerably bare. Nets holding various crates hung from the ceiling. Across from him was a lone cot with a small pillow. Shelves lay on either side of the bed, standing just as barren as the rest of the room. The only light source in the room came from a terminal sitting in the far corner of the room and a lamp sitting on one of the shelves.
Kal walked over and took a seat on the bed, pulling out his drawing book in the process. “That Terra, what do you think of her?”
“Considering she tolerated you for more than eight seconds. I think she is a decent person person.”
“I don’t know. I feel like she’s got something to hide. Like, she’s a cat. Playing nice because we can help her but given the chance, she would gladly be rid of us. Same with the blue-skin.”
“In other words, you don’t trust them already?”
“I don’t really have a choice. I gotta trust them.”
“So, what are you saying?”
He pulled a pencil out of his a bullet sleeve on his bandolier. “I’m saying that… sadly, the two people I have to trust the most didn’t give me a good enough first impression to want to trust them.”
“Maybe that feeling will change and you will become the best of friends?”
“Maybe it will.” He pulled what he remembered of the speaker to the forefront of his mind, drawing the scene.
“What are you drawing?”
“The big moment of the day. Meeting the others at the Speakers place.”
“Would you like me to play your drawing music?”
“Yes please.” His ghost began playing ‘Paradise City’ and he let his mind numb to the music.
...
Kal closed his drawing and stood up from his seat. “Does this ship have an intercom system?”
Sal-E floated over to a small box on the door. “Right here.”
He pressed the button on the box and leaned up to the mike. “Hello?”
“Do you require something, or did you just see a pretty button and decide to press it?” Marvin’s voice came back haughtily.
“Shut up, dickhead.” Kal said, already tired of Marv’s attitude. “How long till touchdown?”
“You are not- Lightbulb, connect him with Terra and silence him on this terminal.”
He shook his head and made a mental note to pop the smartass before they landed. “Terra, you there?”
“What do you want, Kal?” she asked dryly.
“Uh… Alright, there is no better way to ask this. How much longer until we arrive at the Cosmodrome?”
“An hour...two at most. But if there’s heavy Fallen traffic, we may have to change course to where there are fewer of them. This ship isn’t equipped with any weapons.”
“Alright, uh, need any company up front?” he shrugs as he asks. “No offense but this ship doesn’t exactly entertain easily. No music, I swear.”
A long pause, followed by Terra giving an exasperated sigh, “Fine, but behave yourself.”
“C’mon, I’m not Marv here.”
“You’re right. You might very well be worse. But I’m giving you a chance.”
With a roll of his eyes, he pocketed his drawing book and climbed out of his cabin. After a few moments to reorient himself, Kal took off down the path he figured would lead him to Terra. Lucky for him, it did.
He took his seat in the co-pilot seat and leaned back. “Aright, how you doin’ up here?”
“...We could be better,” Terra grimaced as she kept her eyes firmly on the navigational computer.
“Well, considering that everywhere you look is darkness when in space. That’s understandable.”
“Yes...you’re right. In more ways than one.”
Gaia appeared next to her, “I-I really think we should be...doing something about that…”
Terra shut her eyes, “Noted Gaia. Forgive the ramblings. I lose myself from time to time.”
“Uh, you want to go into detail on that? I didn’t hear you say anything.”
“No. Forget it. It’s a waste of time to think about it. Best to focus on the job at hand and nothing else.”
“Geez, when did people get so…”
“Dull?” Sal-E interjected.
“Yeah, what happened Terra? Not like anything is going to happen now.”
“Some things are better left unsaid, Kal. We may be forced to work together now, but it’s not permanent. No use trying to get attached to each other. It complicates things. In our line of work, it gets people killed.”
“That sounds too cynical for you to not be speaking from experience.” Marvin said suddenly from behind them. Terra shrugged.
“It’s basic survival. I may not be human, but we know that’s the reason anyone does anything. Everything is done in the name of survival...and fear occasionally.”
“Now, that don’t make any sense. Back when Titans made up the bulk of the guardians, we had to rely on eachother. That’s why there was chapters and cohorts. Your chapter was your reason for being there but your cohort was your family. Without everyone being there for eachother, the City’s wall would have fell long ago.”
“Titans also are far more...durable than Hunters or Warlocks though.” Marvin responded. “Not that I disagree with either of you, necessarily.”
“Well, think about it. Even when you were in the tower, I bet you got more done when you had other Warlocks helping.”
“Yes, but a library of old and dusty books are hardly...bonding material, nor are bullet wounds and death.”
Terra scoffed, whispering under her breath, “I’m inclined to disagree.”
“Well, last couple groups the Speaker put together haven’t disbanded yet and it’s been a few weeks.” Ka recalled from what he heard from the other Titans in the lunch room.
“They aren’t us. Don’t pretend the world sees things the same way you do. We all have gone through different things. And I’d much rather keep to myself like I always have.” Terra muttered.
“We’ve all made our feelings about working with each other rather clear in a very blunt fashion.” Marvin said dryly. “But seeing as we are stuck together for the foreseeable future…”
“I guess that means we better find this out first and foremost. Can anyone cook?” Kal asked. Not that he couldn’t just he could only make simple meals.
“EXO’s don’t require food. So no,” Terra replied plainly.
“I assume the ability to use a microwave does not count.” Marvin deadpanned..
“Well, I suppose I can definitely whip up some things but don’t expect nothing too fancy.” He said, surprised to find that Marvin didn’t seem too upset with it.
“Nutrition is Nutrition.” The warlock shrugged.
“We’ll keep steering the ship. I’ll notify you once we’re near our destination,” Terra said without taking her eyes of the navigation computer.
“Look, as I said, it’s obvious none of us are thrilled by our current circumstances. But if we cannot even bear to sit or stand within proximity to each other for a few moments, how exactly do you think we’re going to be able to work as a team in combat?”
“You do your thing, we’ll do ours. Simple as that,” Terra said with apathy dripping from her synthesized voice.
“I am not reassured.” Marvin muttered with a sigh as he walked back out.