INTRODUCTION

Well hello there! You must have followed a link to my little work I call Astro Battle--A science fiction novel.

FROM ASTRO BATTLE THE VIDEO GAME

Actually Astro Battle is quite a bit more than a novel for at one time Astro Battle was an online game that I wrote that 25,000 members enjoyed in the 2004-2004 era.

The premise of the video game was that player built his own custom ships and then fought each other in a multiplayer online deathmatch. The challenge was to come up with a better design to outsmart the competition and there was lots of back and forth with maneuver and counter-maneuver, innovation and counter-innovation. The members and I had a blast! Sadly for personal reasons I had to take down the servers in 2008.

In this book there are space battles and then there are the Tactical Engineers: special warriors that apply science and engineering on the battlefield to outwit the enemy. The Members--the ones who played Astro Battle video game--ARE the Tactical Engineers, and it is to them that this work is dedicated.

A DRAFT IN PROGRESS

This work is a draft; a snapshot of progress. If reading something unfinished churns your stomach then you'll have to wait a couple of years for me to finish it.

I will politely listen harsh feedback--I proved that to the members some of whome had VERY harsh feedback! Just expect that if I'm being gracious enough to endure harsh feedback YOU need to be gracious if I do not incorporate that feedback. That being said I have history of considering everything and usually incorporate in my own way.

A GHASTRAL'S OFFER

On a mangled and derelict ship wrecked in the aftermath of a violet space battle , A Ghastral sat on a man's chest.

"Alive? I doubt for much longer.",It gave a little snicker. Its body was plump and fused with the head. Its skin was warty and wet like a toad's and from it a pungent steam emanated. Its voice was raspy and unusually deep for a creature that could sit on a human's hand.

"I've just decided I can't hope to understand you." It spoke through a wide mouth filled with sharp, generously spaced teeth. It made no mitigation for a trickle of a black drool flowing over its bottom lip and chin.

The man coughed and tears escaped his eyes.

"I warned you of this ending..."

The creature bobbed up and down as the man heaved by way of sobbing.

"...and it makes me sad to see you this way..."

A sadistic grin grew on the tiny monster.

"... Broken and humiliated by he... he who is not worthy..."

The grin grew to an absurdity.

"He who has stolen all from you and he who has made it his own...", it trailed off into a slow and rumbling snicker.

The grin eased and the creature became more puffed and reddish. More steam escaped from its body. It held a tiny crystal that glowed with a color never before seen by man... a dark hue. It shoved the crystal before the man's face.

"And Still You Reject the power to make things right... you reject my little trinket. Tisk task, my human."

The man gritted his teeth... The eyes of the little menace began to glow like red embers.

"there really isn't a case for further moralization. He's brought you low. At the point of death... now all that's left is the word. so say it. just say it."

The man forced his mouth shut.

"Say the word, my human. Say it. I can't stand to see you in anguish for another moment. Please. say it. And all this will go away. Say it. I beg you to say it"

Tremors broke over the man's body. The little terror's sickly smile eased back into existence.

"Why do you protest at this late hour? I have told you of the other human we Ghastrals court. He is so very close to saying the word...so very close... you know I know this And once one human says the word I am afraid our masters lose interest in all other candidates. Don't let me lose all the work I have put into you to my rival. Think of me! Think of me and say the word"

With little strength the man put his hand over his mouth and clenched his eyes shut.

"Say it now or accept the injustice forever!", it shouted:" NOW SAY IT! "

The determined abomination hopped on the man's face and peeled his eyelids open. Its own pupils were now red rings that slowly expanded beyond the blacks of his entire eye to be replaced by another growing ring in its center and another and another....

"The moment is nigh, human... he will take it from you! . SAY IT! SAY IT NOW!!!!!!!!"

Suddenly the man violently writhed and spoke three syllables: "ASC-EN- TION!!!"

The Ghastral's grin grew so wide it looked to split his ace in two. A hot batch of steam exploded enveloping the creature and the man. The cloud seemed lit within with the dark hue from the crystal which now shown 'brighter' than ever.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! YES! You Have done it! and Just in time. I knew it would be you. You will now be made into something beyond HIM my human! Ha! Ha! Ha!" The smoke cleared and where they had gone no one can tell.

ASTRO BATTLE

draft edition

by Scott Williams

scott@uberscott.com

PART 1: PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE OF ILLUS

The Red Destiny

VICTORY AND SURRENDER

Somewhere in the universe insignificant dots fought each other over things unimportant to the cosmos--or so it seemed. The dots composed two rival flocks. The first was of the Humans--you may have heard of them. The other the Zell: hideous little monsters that seemed to love violence even when the violence was perpetrated against themselves. Their obsession made them comical little fellows--well 'comical' to one who could overlook all the mass murder. The Humans couldn't overlook mass murder and therefore: War!

The ships of the unwelcome Zell devils were made of organic materials--as a matter of fact a Zell spaceship WAS a type of Zell that had grown into a ship. The outer hull was of hardened black carapace which had an uneven and random bumpiness to it and from any opening or crevice a sickly green glow emanated. The Zell themselves could survive in space and often walked on the surface of their ships.

On the surface of one large Zell ship a runty Zell named Slatch sat attentive to the distant fireworks of battle. Slatch looked to his side as his friend Greebz approached.

Greebz: "Me thougtz we giving supplies, Why the humans come play with us?"

Slatch: "Igumz say humans give us nice 'ambush'"

Greebz: "Thanks Humans!"

The two Zell watched as the battle continued to unfold. Slatch was correct: the nature of this minor skirmish was that of the humans attacking a Zell supply run. Most space battles of this era started with phalanx formations and shield wall contradictions, however, the Zell lines never got a chance to form on this day and the humans were already ripping up the disarray.

Some pensiveness grew in Greebz body...

Greebz: "Me am bored! Why-fore they not come get us!? "

Slatch: "Am too. Me want kill some humans then get blowed up--not sit and watch other Zell have fun!"

The surface of the Zell ship gave a great rumble.

Greebz: "Huh?"

Rubbling and crashing sounds increased.

Slatch: "What those guys doing in there?"

The Surface started to swell.

Greebz: "Is they having more fun in there than we is on here?"

Suddenly cracks started to form over the superstructure.

Slatch: "Wowie!"

Cracks ripped all over the surface. The light emanating from the cracks turned from Zell green to the red of fire.

Slatch & Greebz: "YAAAAAAAY!"

The ship burst beneath their feet sending both Zell sailing into space.

Slatch & Greebz: "We love you!"

From the exit wound burst The Red Destiny. A sleek and state-of-the-art attack craft. She boosted away leaving only her signature orange contrail growing from the ruined Zell spacecraft.

The Red Destiny had just executed her signature move: a shearing attack. By temporarily property shifting her density to a million times that of a diamond and activating her razon offensive shields The Red Destiny could slice through anything unprotected by energized armor.

The Red Destiny banked and boosted towards the center of the fray.

Inside her cockpit another drama unfolded:

“It is over. You are done.”, A hologram of Supreme Commander Mudd asserted with finality.

At least a dozen other politicians, lesser officers and bureaucrats surrounded Mudd forming a holographic chorus of baddies. All concurred with Mudd. All with fight or flight mechanisms strung to near breaking.

The Red Destiny shook as she evaded enemy fire.

Alexander Holmes--the captain of The Red Destiny and leader of the Ronin Fleet--Gave no tell that he was in the heat of a minor battle; he held a stoic demeanor as he sized up his flickering haters. He slumped forward slightly as if his body had finally accepted a some unwanted reality.

“Surrender now, and we will treat you and those you have recklessly lead to hell with fairness and dignity.” A politician added – presumably an important one.

A sudden light show decorated Alexander's face as the battle outside The Red Destiny continued. The cockpit settled down to darkness again.

The stakes of this meeting were high as the Human race was presently engaged in two wars.

The first war was between the Humans and Zell.

The second war was waged between two factions within the human race. So far the conflict had been purely political in nature teetered at times on the verge of violence. The root cause: Circumstances had produced two completely independent fleets that battled the Zell. There was the Alliance Fleet which was under Supreme Commander Garreth Mudd who in turn answered to the politicians empowered by the democratic structures of three large human populations. And the other was the Ronin Fleet whose loyalties fell to Alexander Holmes.

The cause of the multi-fleet situation requires some explanation:

Before the Zell the local galactic neighborhood was sparsely populated with Human colonies and settlements. The overwhelming bulk of humans were clustered among seven mega populations – each containing many billions of inhabitants and each an independent sovereignty with a fleet of ships for defense. Four populations were traditional planets and three more were giant space Arks–human constructed spheres that housed billions of tenants.

The initial Zell blitzkrieg eight years prior took the human race completely by surprise. The Minor Colonies and Settlements were immediately wiped out. The planetary civilizations fell within the first two years of the war. In space combat stationary assets are exceptionally challenging to protect.

The Arks had survived by virtue of their mobility. In the three years before the battle of Ilus the location of the Arks was unknown to the Zell. But that had just changed. On the other side of the Rift of Ilus a Zell fleet waited. An uncountable number of Zell reinforcements approached from many directions. In two days the entire human race would be completely surrounded. Battle projections – which normally varied between outcomes of victory or defeat – seemed to be in rare agreement that the human race was doomed and only differed in predicting how long the defeat would take (with ranges between several hours to several minutes.)

The Alliance fleet was vast. It was composed of the fleets from the intact governments of the remaining three Arks. In the middle portion of the war the Alliance fleet had barely held its own against the Zell. After experiencing significant losses in a battle three years ago the Alliance fleet adopted a purely defensive posture choosing to protect the Arks forsaking attack.

By contrast The Ronin fleet was small – about one tenth the size of the Alliance fleet. Unlike the Alliance, Ronins were not the lapdogs of any government. The Ronins had formed in the absence of political influence. The fleet had grown over the years by annexing military remnants once bound to the now gone planetary sovereignties and included dislodged warships, scientists, engineers, space factories and all the resources to facilitate a respected war machine.

Alexander was the leader of the Ronins… actually he WAS the Ronin fleet. The Fleet existed because of his brashness, his charisma, his magnetic leaderships, his vision, his ambition and his uncanny ability to produce victories from seemingly impossible scenarios. He spread hope to the disenfranchised elements that had lost their homeworlds speech by speech, stirring them to a greater cause… making them part of the effort that would not only save the human race but actually defeat the Zell.

The central difference in doctrine that set the two fleets apart: The Alliance meant to merely survive the Zell while the Ronins meant to completely destroy them. Most believed fleet unification was prerequisite to achieving either goal therefore the dire situation of the Zell’s encroachment created great urgency for unification.

Back to The Red Destiny:

"Gravimectron at 90%. Standing by", reported Peter Dartanian the Ronins Chief Tactical Engineer. There is a lot to say about what a Tactical Engineer does but for now in short they are the wizards of the battlefield always applying science and engineering to outwit the enemy. Clearly Pete, in collusion with Alexander, had some trick up his sleave... something they would unleash on the unwitting Zell to finalize the skirmish.

Alexander acknowledged the updated and returned to his depressing meeting. In a resigned fashion he delivered the climactic proclamation: "I will come to you in ‘The Red Destiny’ for the surrender eight hours from now," The offer was irresistible to Mudd and his counterparts would soon be taking custody of the very symbol of the Ronin fleet.

“AND you will make a speech. A unifying speech announcing that your fleet will be peacefully folded into the Alliance under Commander Mudd.” A Second possibly also important politician inserted.

To them Surrender wasn’t enough… for everything Alexander had put them through the only remedy was public humiliation.

Alexander shut his eyes, tilted his head slightly backwards and--CRASH!--the meeting feed was temporarily cut off as The Red Destiny tore through another ship.

"Fae, No more sheering attacks during my meeting please."

A young girl sat in the pilot's seat of The Red Destiny. She appeared to be no older than nine years old and her face held a glassy expression like her mind was deep within, and yet she piloted to expert precision.

"Just lure them to the gravimectron, Fae, it's almost ready..."

"Fae*Dra lures zell.", Fae responded robotically.

The static abated. The meeting was back on. Alexander shut his eyes, tilted his head slightly backwards and inhaled as if he accepted poison into his body and said “I will make a speech.”

The holograms seemed satisfied, and they faded away like ghosts that had fulfilled their earthly purpose and now had only to be whisked away to the afterlife.

Alexander’s posture shed all signs of duress.

"Fae Kills that man", Fae offered.

"You can kill another human!" Pete scolded.

Fae looked cross.

Alexander placated: "It's all right, Pete. And Fae you're not going to need to kill anyone except the Zell. All of them."

Fae seemed to refocus on her task after Alexander gave her such a challenging murder quota.

"Gravimectron ready.", Pete reported.

"Excellent... Fae's got them in a tight spot now! Ha!", Alexander flicked a comm switch on his console and commanded: "Execute!"

The Red Destiny and companion ships released a smoke screen of nanoparticles named The Shimmer which occluded the Zell's vision but not the sensors of the Ronins. Then All Ronins including The Red Destiny disengaged the Zell and boosted towards the gravimectron at a slight off angle. In an exactly timed maneuver Pete engaged the Gravimectron slingshoting all Ronin ships away with great velocity, but the Zell were confused and not momentarily aligned to slingshot the gravimectron and therefore fell deeper into the gravity well. Pete triggered the gravimectron's detonation and the tiny Zell supply run was no more.

SAFETY IS JUST A FOLD AWAY

A small team of officers started to file out of Mudd's office.

Mudd faced the sofa. “See!?” he said with great agitation.

The last officer looked around but couldn't determine who Mudd was talking to... confused he exited like the rest. Mudd was now alone.

Mudd sank in his chair as if stress that had kept him inflated for years just escaped his body. Then he stiffened again and stood. Again to the sofa: "I told you!" A creature the size of a toad and no better looking sat smoking a cigarette.

Mudd was 60-years-old graying with crusty mustache and sporting a uniform with many vanity adornments: metals and other recognitions of accomplishments.

The anxiety level was elevated but not to the point of panic. The Humans had been in similar spots before and had eluded the Zell by virtue of a very recent discovery: The Fold Drive – a technology the Zell lacked.

The Alliance had installed massive fold drives in each of the three Arks. The fold aperture could be made large enough to transport a convoy, enough to send the fleet with the Arks through a fold in space.

The general populace knew that in a matter of hours the entire human race would be enveloped in a magnificent fold bubble, travel through a bright and chaotic interdimensional tunnel and then reemerge in this universe millions of light years away. They knew it would take the Zell ages to find them again.

Fold drives were scarce, not just because the technology required to create them was cutting edge, but because the heart of every fold drive was enabled by a precursor artifact known as a Tzo crystal.

It was safe passage via the Ark folds that Mudd had leveraged in order to force Alexander’s surrender. Mudd held the access keys to all three Arks on his person at all times and was in complete control of mankind's ability to fold space.

With Zell encroaching from every angle, folding was the only escape. Mudd had forced Alexander’s hand by denying his Ronin fleet safe passage unless he finally surrendered.
Mudd pressed a button and gave orders. “Prepare for the Ronin’s surrender. The Red Destiny will be processed by ‘The Hand of God’ All other Ronin ships will receive skeleton command structures from the Alliance until we know who can be trusted.” “The Hand of God” was Mudd’s flagship. It was a very large capital ship with a powerful main cannon.

The surrender would be very ceremonial which Mudd felt was prerequisite in order for the Ronins to accept the change and the populace of the Arks to feel at ease, and it was of great personal importance that Mudd humiliate Alexander in the process for years of personal hurts.

"That technology is mine now!", Mudd was referring to the many innovations the Ronin’s had made to best the Zell… although the Ronin’s were much smaller they were far more innovative and the benefits of that innovation was now in Mudd’s hands.

Mudd started at his couch companion for a reply. The little beastie inhaled from his cigarette, shrugged as if to say "we'll see" and exhaled a deep billow.

Mudd paced in his office pensively as the creature grinned and continued to fill the room with smoke.

LATE TO THE APPOINTMENT

Alexander walked down the hall of his command ship accompanied by Tactical Engineers Reason & Reksep. Fae*Dra kept pace silently by Alexander’s side. He haggled with the officers over the logistics of surrendering at the appointed time.

“It doesn’t work like a Fusion or Antimatter core. Power will build very slowly… it won’t even be powerful enough to propel your ship at the time you are asking–but give it time, and you’ll have more power than you can handle.”, Reason attempted to offer reasoning.

Alexander had blundered when agreeing upon a time to surrender. He was having a special core installed in The Red Destiny, and he miscalculated the time it would take to be ready. A delay in the transfer of power might be greeted with unwanted hostility.

“We can install an antimatter core instead.” Offered Reksep.

“Not powerful enough…” Alexander squashed the idea.

Alexander and his entourage reached their destination: The quarters of Peter Dartanian Chief Tactical Engineer of the Ronin fleet and Alexander’s best friend. Alexander had complete confidence that Pete would have just the innovation needed to keep his plan on track.

Outside Pete’s office Alexander was met by “Slyther” who worked in the shadows as Alexander’s clandestine fixer.

Slyther was short and slightly overweight. He always wore reflective glasses to the point where Alexander had never seen his actual eyes. His uniform was unique from the rest of the Ronins, it was quite plain with a sash and at his side was sheathed a small dagger. Slyther gave a sinister smile when he greeted Alexander as if he was delighted to carry out some fresh mischief.

The door slid open and all entered the room. Pete was completely absorbed in a holographic battle plan and examined it up to the last moment before his attention was required to be turned over to the interlopers. He then deactivated the simulation and examined the attendees. Pete glanced at Slyther and then his eyes returned to Alexander following the path of an upward bowing arc as if he was fighting the desire to roll his eyes. Pete already knew very well the reason for this visit.

“How can we speed this up?” Alexander posed a blunt question.

Pete was silent for a moment. He understood the technology that drove the new core well, and he genuinely entertained Alexander’s impossible request for a few moments.

“We could subject it to a large energy burst from another reactor just as we seed a fusion reaction sometimes…. The problem is that this drive is such new technology, and we don’t have the data to simulate the outcome. We would run a high risk of catastrophic destruction… with easily enough energy to obliterate the entire flotilla.”

The meeting progressed with several lesser Tactical Engineers posing a wide range of unproven options. Pete carefully dismissed each proposal as impractical or too dangerous to attempt.

“Our problem stems from the fact that no one has ever created a core for a Tzo crystal this small… Many properties of how Tzo crystals behave are still unknown to us so we don’t have the tools required to simulate these proposals.”, Pete said with finality.

Pete resorted to a tried and true reminder from Tactical Engineers of old: “As you know I opposed this plan. But since you are proceeding all I have left to say is that you need to treat the time it will take to build the core power as an immovable object and solve your problem some other way because a known safe solution does not exist within our knowledge.”

“Within our knowledge….” Alexander trailed off and seemed to bring his thoughts inward for a moment.

“Perhaps a more political approach can solve your problem.” Slyther said. Alexander broke with his ruminations and gave Slyther his full attention. Pete did not make eye contact with Slyther, but instead directed his focus on his console screen returning to other matters that needed his attention.

“They are seeking symbolism. What about the surrender of some other valued and high ranking officials? It will show your commitment and buy time. It will ease the tension as they wait for you.” Slyther proposed.

Alexander looked forward as this new idea worked its way through his mind. “Yes!” he said and his inspirational nature swelled within him for the convincing he was about to undertake.

“Pete, my boy!” Alexander said loudly, causing Pete to jolt in his seat. “It has to be YOU!”

“On second thought let’s go ahead and bombard the Tzo crystal with energy–I prefer instantaneous obliteration.” Pete retorted.

“It has to be you. You are the only officer other than me that is well known by the Alliance.”

“No way”, Pete was firm.

“Give us a moment.” Alexander commanded.

All auxiliary participants shuffled out of Pete’s office except for Fae*Dra. Slyther gave Pete an acidic smile as he eclipsed the threshold.

The door shut. A muffled and heated conversation could be heard by all outside. Fifteen minutes later the door slid open and a resigned looking Pete began walking towards his ship in the hanger assembly. He passed Fae*Dra with tense steps. His feet seemed to be trudging through molasses while his upper body was nudged along by the power of Alexander’s invisible will.

ONE LESTER MAN

Far from peril a seemingly insignificant vessel laid nested in the support flotilla.

The support flotilla was thousands of spacecraft that attach themselves and joined their innards into a giant, unwieldy and most ugly wonder of engineering. Power and fluids were shared between the flotilla members via cables and pipes, but what truly made the Flotilla special was the conveyance tubes which allowed efficient transfer of men and materials. In this way the specialties of each ship contributed to one giant support superstructure. The Flotilla was a mobile home base if you will. Of course significant time and effort was needed to assemble (or disassemble) such a monstrosity and when combined mobility was entirely compromised.

The support flotilla was decked with hangars, repair bays, vaults, barracks, officer quarters, mess halls, science stations and everything else imaginable. It was a temporary floating main base for the Ronin fleet and its capture or destruction by the enemy would mean total collapse of the Ronins. It was ALSO the headquarters of the Tactical Engineering Support team which was housed in the ‘seemingly insignificant’ and clunky piece of junk vessel mentioned christened ‘Vulkan’s Pride.’

The ‘seemingly’ differentiator is an essential adjective because Tactical Engineers were vital to Astro Battle… No major battle in space had been won without smart use of these battlefield wizards. They were more smart than strong. They applied their arcane knowledge of science, technology, mathematics and engineering to give their battlefield masters an advantage critical for victory. And unlike other engineers, all Tactical Engineers were a fast and decisive thinker and doer.

Among Tactical Engineers were two distinct and different varieties. The Field Tactical Engineers 'Fielders' who are obedient to command and proud to stand among the hardened warriors on the front lines. Fielders were not averse to extreme risk or personal hazard or engaging in actual hand-to-hand combat. They had the respect of everyone in the war machine.

Then there were the Tactical Engineer Support team 'Suppies' who were unalike in that they were more fat than fit, more opinionated than compliant. The suppies were the bane of command and–if not for their extreme utility–top brass would have turned their implements of war towards the ‘Vulkan’s Pride’ and obliterated its crew of headache-inducing-know-it-alls.

One other thing, when it was written a paragraph ago that ‘Fielders’ had “the respect of everyone in the war machine” It would have been more accurate to say “...Almost everyone in the war machine” for the Suppies thought themselves smarter than the Fielders--which makes sense, Suppies were smart enough to not go to places they might get killed like the front lines, after all. To be more direct: The two cousin species of Tactical Engineers do not like each other. More granularly, the Fielders hate the Suppies and the Suppies don’t care what any thought of them.

Condition lights and periodic public announcements were rousing the sedentary support staff to a state where they could fulfill their battle-time duties. There had been a complete information blackout on the flotilla–especially censored was the news of Alexander’s struggles with the main fleet which had been under a strict information blackout… no one on the Vulkan’s Pride knew what was next however a feeling pervaded the flotilla: A major battle was imminent.

Aboard the Vulkan’s Pride Massive lines of Tactical Engineers flowed and flexed into the situation room like tiny particles in a stream each driving to his destination against the friction and backpressure of the crowd. The situation room was a vast cubical farm where the support Engineers conducted operations. Although in look each cube station was nothing cube-like, but more like a negative hemisphere, each decorated with a lovely fattened tactical engineer in the center and the accommodation was small… Tactical Engineering stations were less entered and more worn.

Among those people particles one Lester Mann surfed the starts and stops reluctantly homing in to his destination. He was–as all are in those moments–lost in thought. Scenes of the past and dreams of the future played in his mind: a collage of trauma, regrets, triumphs and goals just as any who share the human experience reviewing and renewing how he thought of himself, others and the things that made him who he was at that very moment.

He remembered something and made a sudden pivot. His request to move his station had been approved so now he oriented towards the promised land and proceeded forward.

Then the dream ended. He saw something. “Ed Greely”, he said acidicly and under his breath. And indeed, settling into an adjacent station was one Edward Greely – the very reason Lester had requested transfer.

Edward was not alone but surrounded by a cadre of cadets; trainees and future Tactical Engineers not recognized by Lester. Two scrawny kids and one giant one.

“Here he is!” Ed barked excitedly. “He’s the one! Less! Hey, you moved. Don’t worry, I told Gage we always sit together.”

He extended his index finger and pointed in a semicircle: “Meet the guys!”

He then slunk into the ‘promise land’ with all the excitement of diving into a hellhole.

"Here we got Grey, Jet and Bodgie" … He leaned forward and spoke quieter but still loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear," Bodgie’s my favorite, but Greys got the best eyes for spotting things! What fun! I’m the new ambassador to the cadets here as you know!"

Some sort of smile facsimile cracked on Lester’s hardened face. He slunk into his station and activated his terminal… he was immediately surrounded by holographic interfaces, but not cloaked to an extent that he couldn’t be seen.

"Mr Holmes!" Jet blurted. Ed launched his right hand in placation of Jet and Less. "Lester Mann not Lester Holmes", Ed corrected. "You can just call him Less."

"Sorry, Mr. Greely", Jet said sheepishly. Lester’s head ticked up a few angles, and he stared straight forward and into nothing for a moment with unusually wide eyes.

"It’s fine!", Ed continued, "Everyone makes mistakes. Less is the shimmer guy! Didn’t I tell you Less and I invented the shimmer"

"The one that commander Alexander uses!", Grey spouted.

"Now don’t make ole Less cranky, Grey, Less is modest and his brother doesn’t like him too much...Did I tell you guys Less and I have been best friends since High school?" The cadre of numb skulls nodded out of sequence.

"We’re like family! All of us!"

Bodgie pushed his giant head through the plane of holographic interfaces protecting Less making his question impossible to ignore: “Mr. Less, I’m a fan of your innovations in regard to nanobots. In particular your creation of the shimmer effect. I was wondering if you can explain exactly how that works.”

“Ha! That’s my Bodgie! Yer gonna love these guys, Less.”

Less sat back in his chair and dimmed his console in surrender. That and it was actually a good question from Bodgie.

"Well, the bots are released into space and diffuse like a gas. Because they hold a slight attraction to each other they can maintain a cloud shape in a vacuum. Each bot is capable of bending a tiny amount of electromagnetic energy… i.e. light the sheer volume of bots makes this effect multiplicative to the extreme."

"The oscillating perturbation of energy plus the random motion and orientation of the bots disturbs the flow of light to such an extent the image of anything behind the shimmer from the observer's perspective into pure chaos. The observer can see there is something there, but cannot determine what it is or what it is doing."

"But why can WE see what is on the other side of the Shimmer!", Bodgie Asked.

"I thought only I could see on account of I got such good eyes.", Jett inserted.

"Such wit! —" Ed continued to dote but Less cut him off:

"The bots broadcast their positions and oscillate in a random but predetermined pattern. We are able to reverse calculate the perturbations and generate a reasonable facsimile of what is on the other side."

"That’s why you are my favorite, Bodgie!", Now Ed wasn't even trying to be subtle.

An alarm sounded. All the Tactical Engineers scurried to their assigned positions.

Chief Engineer Peter Dartanian appeared as a giant lifeless hologram in front of all and started to deliver a briefing. There was talk about the Zell… breaching the Zell line…. Some sort of big explosion…. As the talk went on Lester became incapable of listening.

It was time for Lester to engage his greatest superpower… he activated his cybernetic implants and sank deep into his dreamworld while at the same time activating a subroutine that kept his body upright and eyes open. His superpower was essentially the ability to sleep through meetings without anyone noticing. The human race was sure to be saved by this fellow.

ON THE STATE ANDROSYNTH TECHNOLOGY

HISTORICAL DATAGRAM

10 YEARS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF iLUS.

A report written by Dr. Cathleen Hayes--head of Androsynth research for the Alliance

This document is meant to outline the history of the Androsynth program and update the public on our recent advancements in this field.

The Androsynth development program has been making advancements for the last 100 years.

An Androsynth is something much more than a human being that has had augmentations clumsily bolted on to form some sort of cyborg monstrosity. An Androsynth is born as an Androsynth. To create an Androsynth a human fetus is taken–-always a damaged one that cannot survive a normal gestation–-and that fetus is allowed to develop in a matrix filled with nano-fluid which weaves technology into every cell of the growing mass and fills in the missing and damaged organic parts with technology. The result is a human that is very elegantly blended with technology down to the cellular level.

Androsynths possess a childlike demeanor– as a matter of fact some do not age past being a child no matter how old they are. They are always highly intelligent displaying extreme proficiency in technology, mathematics and scientific reasoning--Yet they lack some common sense and basic social skills. They are also prone to being uninterested and unable to understand certain situational stimuli that most humans would find worthy of observation and consideration–for example androsynths are completely unable to understand politics, sarcasm, and humor of any kind and as a result they filter out their environment unless they are directly addressed and when directly addressed they can’t seem to process the information enough to have a meaningful conversation.

The overwhelming utility of Androsynths is their ability to mentally interface with computers. Many normal humans have cybernetic brain implants to communicate with systems and to experience simulations. However, the interactions are quite limited. A typical human cyborg has a limited vocabulary consisting of basic commands like “Turn on the light” or “summon warehouse item #123 .” In contrast, an Androsynth’s brain is fused with technology at the cellular level and throughout the entire brain. This unique configuration–-impossible to insert into an already developed human–-leads to an Androsynth’s fluidity of thought that flows naturally into computer commands and back again.

Astonishingly newer Androsynths also have an Actuation Number which is the number of complicated systems they can control besides their own body. Among the Androsynth there were many Bi-Actuators and Tri-Actuators. The record Actuation number was an Androsyth was a Quad-Actuator. Their actuation number allows them to control something as complicated as a warbot or a spaceship with complete precision AND of course they can simultaneously control as many bots as their actuation number allows. They can also control their actuation number plus one if they have the luxury to remain absolutely still in a technique where they give up control of their own body in order to control one more system.

The Androsynth program was just a research project initially and suffered many failures in the first 25 years which resulted in ethical complaints and calls for the abandonment of the project. Luckily a breakthrough was realized creating the first capable Androsynth: Py*Rad. This androsynth was blessed with a detailed understanding of fluid dynamics and demonstrated his precision in controlling a maelstrom of super hot plasma directed and contained in great precision by Py*Rad using a variety of force fields. Dim*Roh is the direct successor to the original Py*Rad as an Androsynth’s core can be reused many times creating a new being with the memories and some abilities of its predecessors.

Later models improved on the Actuation number and produced the first quad actuator Dee-Fau fifty years ago who sadly died in a brief war skirmish with the warmongering Offus species.

My work began ten years ago. In that time we have made fantastic advancements towards mental stability with the failure rate dropping from 50% down to 20%. That’s correct, prior to our work 50% of androsynths had to be culled due to various mental problems that made them unusable. That sounds heartless and indeed it breaks my heart to deal with failures but we must keep in mind that these were fetuses that were 100% destined to die and their only hope was playing the odds via the Androsynth procedure… many lived meaningful lives but just as many perished. More importantly we euthanized failures because it was the only way to relieve them of the hellish emotional chaos that rattles in their defunct minds.

We have also made great strides in integrating new technologies into the Androsynth’s body. Before my tenure Androsynths were a marvel of human ingenuity yet it had no innate abilities meaning it had no exceptional strength, integrated weapons or mobility enhancements. An androsynth from my predecessors could only truly shine when it was interfacing with a computer.

We are showing great promise in introducing basic technologies like super strength, a finger beam and basic hovering/flight capability. We are working on more features but are currently blocked by an unfortunate limitation we encountered which is that we are not able to install ALL of the enhancements in a single Androsynth forcing us to choose different subsets of features. Fortunately these modifications can be introduced after the Androsynth is born which gives the Androsynth great flexibility based on his or her wants.

I look forward to our continued dialog over the future of our Androsynth program! Please contact my office to schedule a tour of our facilities guided by none other than me!

Regards,

Dr. Cathleen Hayes
Head of the Development
Institute of Cybernetics

DISEMBARKATION

Alexander and Fae*Dra emerged from a conveyance tube and entered the hangar in the Ronin’s flagship carrier. They stared thoughtfully at The Red Destiny as engineering bots scurried around making adjustments and final touches for flight readiness. Alexander was decked head to toe in red battle armor and wore a short cape that was dark red on the outside contrasted by a brighter red on the interior side. The cape was merely for show. Red was Alexander’s color and the enemy knew that any red battle piece was in some way directly associated with Alexander Holmes. Beside Alexander stood Fae*Dra clad in black armor. She also starred forward at the commotion surrounding The Red Destiny and seemed to be in a trance. Fae*Dra was the pilot of The Red Destiny and an Androsynth.

Alexander gave a protected glance toward Fae*Dra. She was his most important strategic asset and his new best friend. The second strategic asset and previous best friend was currently being arrested and humiliated by Mudd. Alexander activated a vid feed and saw Pete being dragged into Mudd’s flagship under protection of guard with Mudd making a great show of how the Ronin’s fleet Tactical Engineering team was now impotent. There seemed to be a little acid in the presentation because of the public knowledge that Pete and Alexander were best of friends (were best friends, but the public didn’t know much about Fae*Dra). Alexander turned off the vid feed angrily. “Just wait Pete. I will not forget you”

The flotilla conveyance delivered a massive apparatus to the hangar. It was a large unwieldy glob of technology that seemed shoddily put together. Pipes, drooping cables and various components ran all over its exterior like ill-considered greeble. It seemed to have two large main components that shared all kinds of temporary interconnections.

The Engineering bots tending to the Red Destiny shuffled into an orderly formation greeting the apparatus like a guest of honor. The apparatus came to a rest beside The Red Destiny.

A large panel that covered the bulk of the center portion of the Red Destiny was detached by a few quick moving bots and a giant mechanical arm that was a permanent fixture of the hanger lifted the panel away from the workspace. The fresh opening revealed a large cavity right where one would expect to see a main component.

Bots rapidly swarmed over the apparatus detaching pipes and cables. After a good deal of loose parts had been removed one of the larger components began to open like a clam-shell to reveal the payload: It was the core reactor for the Red Destiny. Unlike the apparatus which seemed in every way to be temporary and hastily built, the core was very clean looking with very few fiddly bits adorning its exterior. It looked as if it had been solidly engineered to the highest degree. The apparatus had supplied the core with all the plumbing required to operate as if it was in an actual ship. It also fed the core its ignition energy building to a point where the reactor could sustain itself. The core seemed to hum with power even though it was at that time operating at a mere fraction of its total capable output.

More bots joined the effort and began transferring connections from the apparatus to the internals of The Red Destiny. And then a large fixed robot arm lowered the fresh core into the ship. The Bots bolted the reactor in place. Finally, the panel was reattached completing The Red Destiny’s maintenance. The Red Destiny came to life now that power was flowing through it. All over the ship various lights activated and actuation surfaces started going through range-of-motion diagnostics.

Fae*Dra seemed to spring to life too. A focused posture rippled through her body. It was not a coincidence–her mind was directly linked to The Red Destiny and a tremendous flow of telemetry was now being exchanged.

"Asymptote in 2 hours then 5 minutes till critical", She said. Alexander glanced as if to say "message received."

They approached the ship which was suspended several meters above their heads. The ventral portal opened and a light from the ship pulled them up into the air and into the ship.

The Red Destiny was a Companion class ship. The Companion class was designed by the Ronin engineering team with technology that had no rival in the entire human fleet. Its role was penetration of enemy lines by virtue of superior agility and sheering attacks in order to deliver a main cannon blast right where the opposition was most vulnerable.

The two assumed their positions in the cramped bridge of The Red Destiny. They were the only ones to board this time.

Fae*Dra sat in a chair positioned towards the forward area of the bridge where two pilots normally sat. The unique configuration of the Red Destiny had only one piloting station centered along the width of the ship. Fae*Dra’s custom setup featured an uncharacteristically minimalist console.

Alexander took the captain’s chair directly behind Fae*Dra yet elevated a bit. The entire floor of the bridge was raked at a minor angle in order to give aftward crew positions a view that wasn’t partially blocked by their more forwardly located colleagues. Four additional stations flanked the captain’s center aisle with consoles that surrounded the occupants almost completely–for this mission those stations would be unmanned.

The Bridge was enveloped in a holo projecting screen that conformed to the walls and ceiling and in some cases the floor. When the ship was underway the holo-projector screen provided total situational immersion – it was as if the majority of the bridge’s surfaces was completely invisible giving the occupants a 360 degree situational view.

The vessel gave off a growing symphony of unique hums as Fae*Dra began to supply power to various ship systems. Several systems produced a sort of wind up sound as they drew increasing amounts of power; finally reaching a stable hum when operational parameters were achieved.

The reactor’s power output was quite lean at the moment which necessitated Fae*Dra to adopt an extremely strategic boot up procedure favoring only the essential components needed at the moment and supplying those components with just enough power for them to be to initialize.

A Companion class ship was typically fitted with a Fusion Core Reactor and sometimes a more powerful Anti-Matter Core reactor… but this time The Red Destiny’s source was something that had never been attempted before in such a small ship – A Tzo Crystal reactor core.

Unknown to the Alliance Alexander had acquired a Tzo crystal. It was small – about the size of a grain of sand – and it had an imperfect yellow coloring. It was a wimp compared to the Tzo crystals in the Arks which were about 4-6 Carrots in size.

Although the Ronin engineers had worked towards creating a fold drive for The Red Destiny they fell short of the goal and landed upon a simpler core reactor solution for the interim.

A Tzo crystal can be coaxed into accessing a second dimension where the laws of physics differed from our own. In this second dimension vacuums produced energy instead of stars. A Tzo crystal could pull the natural abundant energy through a portal. The portal apertures for our dimension and the second dimension did not have to be the same size. The reactor worked by creating a tiny aperture in our dimension while expanding the aperture of the energy universe dimension to many hundreds of thousands of kilometers in order to harvest the dilute power produced by the vacuum. The energy would concentrate as it traveled through a narrowing portal and exit into the reactor chamber via the microscopic aperture that existed in our dimension.

The majority of the power outflow was used to grow the second aperture increasing the total reactor yield. The second-largest quantity of power was consumed by the core’s containment mechanism which basically prevented the reactor from exploding. A small fraction of the total power energized the main bus which fed various components throughout the ship.

The core’s output would grow to an over-abundance of available energy in the next half hour. Alexander meant to deliberately push the Tzo Crystal reaction to “The Asymptote” – which was the point at which the power would scale at an exponential rate. Once the Asymptote is reached the core cannot be shut down. From that moment the core containment mechanisms will have five minutes before they are overwhelmed resulting in a catastrophic explosion that would consume the ship and anything else within five-thousand kilometers… that is unless the reactor core could be vented in some way.

Alexander carefully observed a news feed that was playing on one of his screens. The feed played background video of Pete exiting his ship in the hangar of Mudd’s flagship while some talking pundits effortlessly came to agreement that the Ronin fleet was more or less impotent now that it was stripped of its Chief Tactical Engineer.

“Ready, Fae?” Alexander asked.

“Affirm, Alex!”, Fae responded.

Alexander hit a switch that opened a Ronin communication channel. Several holographic images appeared suddenly in front of him including the visage of Slyther. “Commence.” Alexander said and a chorus of “Rogers” rang out from the virtual gathering. He turned the channel off and the holographic personages faded away.

The hangar hatch started to open exposing its contents to the vacuum of space.

“Disembark.” Alexander commanded.

“Roger, Dis-bark.” responded Fae while simultaneously putting the ship into a gentle motion exiting the hangar.

Alexander activated a political feed. Vid screens everywhere there were humans broadcasting the impending unification. Pundits showered Admiral Mudd and Politicians alike with unanimous praise and relished Alexander’s satisfying downfall. Alexander snickered.

Ronin escorts began to join The Red Destiny in its procession to Mudd’s flagship.

Alexander switched on the comm channel, "Fly more like it's a funeral dirge." Fae fluttered and The Red Destiny suddenly lost its confidence.

"How fly a dirge?" Fae panicked.

"Yikes! Not you, Fae." The ship and pilot's confidence was restored.

The Red Destiny was a companion class fighter. Companion class had three stand out features: unrivaled agility, razon shields that could pierce through the toughest of materials and a main beam cannon that was exceptionally powerful for the size of the ship. Outmaneuvering the enemy, slicing through his defences and dealing a deathblow to his vulnerable spot was the role that made the companion class a winner in astro battle.

Superior Agility was achieved via the Exceed engine which allowed the ship to temporarily break the laws of physics. It allowed near instant displacement of a short distance with no apparent acceleration or deceleration. The exceed engine aboard the Companion's had a maximum range of 500 meters, it could be used several times a second though the engine had an overall constraint that was a complicated product of jump size and frequency over time.

One other weakness: a ship that was using exceed could not come into contact with any matter or energy during its short journey. If it did so the exceed jump would be cancelled and the object would return to its previous velocity most likely destroying it in the process.

The genius of the companion class was in its innovative use of a single reactor that produced energy directly compatible with the main engines and cannon. Predecessors required a conversion matrix for one or both resulting in considerable loss of efficiency.

The design choice to link the main cannon and propulsion was also the companion’s greatest weakness: For every drop of power that was supplied to the cannon, the propulsion would be underpowered proportionally and vice versa.

The Companion class sported a sleek design. It was actually aerodynamic and capable of flight through atmospheres. The forward portion housed the bridge and flared like a spearhead. A long neck connected the forward bridge to the main body of the ship. The Base flared into modestly protruding diamond shaped winglets. The propulsion mechanism consisted of one large main thruster sandwiched by four auxiliary thrusters each about one fourth the size of the main thruster. The neck housed the cannon barrel enclosed inside the hull. Before firing the cannon, the hull plating of the neck and parts of the bridge would separate along a ventral seam and the cannon would be lowered beneath the bridge.

The Ronin fleet contained no more than twelve companion class ships in its retinue. They were especially expensive to produce due to the exotic materials and layered construction required to support the exceed engine the razon shield and the main cannon.

Alexander spared no expense in the construction, maintenance and modernization of The Red Destiny. Support staff joked that every molecule of the ship was slightly better and more expensive than the companion ships of the rank and file.

The small Ronin detachment chugged along as if in morbid resignation.

The power of the Tzo Crystal doubled again.

"Asymptote in 2 hours", Fae*Dra updated.

CHAPTER 5: THE SURRENDER

The Red Destiny came to a full stop a mere 100 meters away from Mudd’s flagship. Her escorts held rear positions at a stand-off distance of approximately one kilometer.

"Asymptote in one hour and ten minutes", Fae added.

“Our pomp and circumstance seems acceptable to them...” Alexander commented.

“kill him now?”, Fae asked like it was nothing.

“We shouldn’t need to kill anyone. Just talk.” Alexander almost laughed.

They waited.

The size disparity between The Red Destiny and Mudd’s flagship was great; It betrayed the stark difference in the men’s command styles. Mudd led his fleet from a giant flagship that when in battle lingered behind several protective phalanxes. Although Mudd’s ship adopted a protected position when danger was afoot it did not do so due to any lack of prowess. His ship featured a powerful deflective shield, an assortment of point defense energy weapons, a main hangar that could launch a small squadron of warbots and most importantly a devastatingly powerful main cannon. Although his ship avoided direct action Mudd would usually engage enemy remnants once the outcome was imminently favorable. He would finish his opponents in dramatic flare with his ship's awesome main cannon.

By contrast Alexander’s ship was a large fighter style. Its role was to penetrate the front line and directly engage the enemy. Alexander led from the front which inspired great loyalty amongst the Ronins.

Between The Red Destiny and Mudd’s flagship a giant holographic projection flickered to life. It was a ten-story direct feed of Mudd’s head and shoulders… Mudd was being simultaneously broadcast to the Arks and both fleets–the entire human race was to be witness to this historic transfer of power.

Mudd’s hologram spoke: “Eight years and seven months ago the Zell descended upon the human race--A ruthless and unprovoked enemy.”

“Our sovereignties marshaled their respective fleets to counter the Zell. The men and women who served were brave and capable–but each fleet faced a larger and unified enemy. The scattered and uncoordinated response led to unimaginable losses in the early years of conflict–including the complete obliteration of four planetary mega civilizations reducing the total human population by two thirds.”

“The soldiers nobly persevered in pursuit of the impossible task asked of them. They endured losses that they should not have–not because of any flaw in their character–but because the various command structures lacked a coordinated strategy.”

“Two years into the conflict the Alliance fleet was formed from the governments of the three Arks and the human race began to beat back the Zell. The key to victory became apparent: ‘Unification.’”

“The Alliance has held off the Zell for the last six years–but we can do better–because the human effort is still not completely unified!”

“Military remnants of the now gone planets survived and remained committed to the cause against the Zell. These remnants coalesced into what is now known as the Ronin fleet. They avenged their lost homeworlds ferociously inflicting great damage to our Zell enemies. The Ronins will forever hold a place of honor in our species history.”

“But today marks a change for the Ronins and the Alliance. Because despite the greatness of both fleets they can be even better! And we know this from the lesson from our past: ‘Unification is Victory.’”

“Through Unification, we will do more than hold the Zell at bay. We will defeat them! From our victory a long-lasting age of peace and rebuilding will commence.”

“I am not the only one that believes in the power of Unification. For the last six months we have been in negotiations with the leader of the Ronin fleet: Alexander Holmes. His exploits are famous and no reminding of them is necessary. Alexander is in agreement that unification is prerequisite to victory. He is wise enough to know that personal glory must not supersede the greater good.”

“The Alliance is ready to accept you!” The hatch for the main hangar opened right below the bridge portion of Mudd’s ship. A welcoming beam of warm light emanated from the hangar and shone upon The Red Destiny. It looked like a magical tunnel that existed to kindly guide The Red Destiny to its inevitable future.

“Now, I have spoken the words of unification. But I am not alone, for Alexander himself shares our vision of a unified effort. And now I will turn the proceedings over to Alexander so we may hear directly about the future of the Ronins and the Alliance and in fact the future of the entire human race!”

Over the feeds waves of applause and cheering filled the background audio.

From The Red Destiny a holo projector emitted a representation of Alexander. His projection was just his regular size and comprised his entire body in a standing posture.

The crowd noise settled down and converted to anticipatory listening.

Alexander’s hologram spoke: "Thank You, Mudd for your tribute. I simply can't conclude this ceremony without saying a few words."

“And I always speak from the heart be it to a respected rival or the lowest of scum.”

"Your sacrifice to yourself has earned you a special place in the pantheon of dereliction. Your incompetence is responsible for many great defeats. There are many who have lost their lives because of you and many who will unwittingly lose their lives if you are allowed to continue.

"You have chosen to abandon your duty as a soldier to the very end and usurp power risking the welfare of humanity and all that 'represents the best of our people'. I refuse to salute you, knowing that even as you fade away, your legacy of cowardice will be an unwelcome black mark on the men and women you betrayed for … well… I don’t know of any good that you have done."

"But I am not all hostility and barbs towards you, my most unworthy rival. I thought it only kind of me to attend this surrender as promised. And now we are here."

"I accept YOUR surrender."

Mudd’s holographic face remained stunned for a moment, then his face seemed to suddenly swell with blood. Mudd rapidly burst out a series of fragmented responses: "What!? What is the meaning of this! You were supposed to… This is an outrage! How DARE you!"

Mudd gathered himself a little and then countered with his first coherent argument: "I am the supreme commander of all military and by democratic decree your fleet is now under my control! This is treason! And you have NO standing to make ANY demands of me!" He had regained coherency but his delivery was rife with agitation making him seem like a man that was about to lose control.

"You have already lost." Alexander said calmly and then switched off his hologram. As soon as Alexander delivered this verdict Mudd’s hollow projection jolted in surprise, he turned 180 degrees to see the source of a commotion. The hologram degraded showing signs of rapid signal decay and then it fizzled out.

"Power has quadrupled since disembarkation. Asymptote in one hour." Fae-Dra updated Alexander.

“Excellent! Tracking perfectly!” Alexander said.

The entire human race entered an uneasy wait. Every living soul felt a growing tension as they waited for the situation to progress. Well, every human besides Alexander who was passing the time by reviewing the current Zell and Human formations.

The Alliance front consisted of hundreds of thousands of phalanxes each composed of many thousands of warbots arranged in an elongated hexagonal shape many layers deep. Directly in front of the phalanx a similarly shaped directed hexagonal dampening energy shield protected the phalanx, and in some cases spears, lances or cannons protruded from the front line ships beyond the shield to provide some offensive capability.

Behind the front line tens of thousands of military attack vessels eagerly awaited to fulfill their various roles in battle and behind the attack ships twice as many support vessels lingered.

The power output of The Red Destiny’s reactor doubled again.

The Zell's approach to warfare differed in many ways. Instead of warbots the Zell had the Rabble–which was their lowest ranking warrior caste–quite easy to kill but absolutely overwhelming in numbers. The Zell threat on the other side of the Rift of Ilus was at least 100 times larger than the entire human fleets combined.

The rabble formed the front line which was one chaotic undulating plane many thousands of kilometers in size. Sections of the front would shrink or swell to strengthen defense where needed. The rabble front also generated a protection barrier– in this case it was a green Zell cloud. The cloud was constantly fed exotic energies which made it look as if it hosted many thunderstorms. The cloud provided three defenses: first the gas slowed any object attempting to pass through it–not because of friction but with a property shift that decreased the object’s velocity–in many cases objects would come to a complete stop and be stuck in the cloud. Secondly bolts of energy that resembled lightning randomly streaked in every direction and would cause damage to any object inside the cloud. Lastly the cloud would dissipate energy blasts making a main cannon attack ineffective. The cloud varied in thickness in exact proportion to the bulges and divots of the rabble’s front line.

Both Zell and Human phalanxes were practically impossible to break head on, which made tactics necessary in the form of circumventing, outflanking or sapping. Trying to stop an approaching phalanx with anything but another phalanx was tantamount to a human trying to stop a giant rolling boulder with his bare hands.

Alexander’s console indicated that Slyther was requesting a communication channel, and he accepted the request. A holo of Slyther appeared above his console. “Secured” he said and his characteristic sinister smile began to grow. “Well done.” said Alexander as he simultaneously terminated the call in an effort to avoid seeing Slyther’s creepy smile grow to completion.

ON TZO CRYSTALS

45 YEARS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ILUS.

[Request for funding rational by Dr. David Tzo on the recent discovery of a certain precursor artifact]

We have long known of the Precursors, an alien species that died out over a million years ago which possessed fantastical technologies that we are only beginning to unravel.

Over the years Archeological efforts led by Dr. Ken Moore and his team have discovered a variety of Precursor Artifacts. Typically, these artifacts are found in vast cave structures inside massive asteroids which seem to have served as burial chambers. Most of the artifacts seemed inert yet Dr. Moore and his team have proved proficient in gleaning the utility of the artifacts. From his discoveries we are many times humbled by the achievements of the Precursors; they were clearly far, far ahead of our own progress!

About ten years ago Dr. Moore discovered an artifact that he could not explain. It was a small crystal about 3 carrots in weight and in the form of a hexahedron with the top and bottom points protruding slightly more than the other points. The crystal was internally flawless and one could not be blamed for staring at it for hours. It was impossible to ascertain the material that the crystal was made of… no instrument could measure any of the crystal's internal features; apparently its study ended at the surface of the artifact. Dr. Moore eventually moved on to more promising artifacts and placed the crystal in a display in his office where it sat for the next five years.

By pure chance an evacuation caused by a minor radiation leak from a nearby reactor caused Dr. Moore to hastily pack up the essentials in his office. As he started to make a quick break to safety he passed the crystal and noticed that it was emitting a very slight pulsating glow of some kind of light. He identified the light as a color he couldn’t really explain… in denser regions of the light it seemed to create a region which completely confused his senses. He then grabbed the crystal and excitedly escaped danger. He surmised that the crystal was reacting to the radiation indicating that it was some kind of power source. Over the months he subjected the crystal to various radiations in some cases the “mystery hue” light would emanate from the crystal. Unfortunately he came to the limits of his expertise regarding this artifact and decided to seek an expert.

I’m grateful that Dr. Moore chose me to continue the research. I am an expert in energy dynamics ranging from force fields to gravimechtrons. I’m familiar with all the known forms of energy that human beings have encountered thus far and I follow the latest theoretical progress in the fields of wormholes, extra universal dimensions, and the exploration of possible exotic types of energies that have yet to be discovered. My team and I have been working with Dr. Moore for the last 5 years trying to crack mysteries of this crystal.

I should add that due to the many findings I have published, Dr. Moore and his team have graciously named the artifact a Tzo crystal after me. I’m not sure that I deserve this honor but Dr. Moore was quite insistent despite my protests. At first, I cringed every time I said Tzo Crystal, but Dr. Moore was quite adept at something resembling group therapy by reminding me that he has a great number of artifacts already named after him, and it doesn’t bother him a bit. Okay… well… so it's called a Tzo Crystal now. I now accept this extreme honor without protest.

Early in my research I discovered that a variety of energies other than radiation that the Tzo crystal has even more pronounced reactions too. In some experiments it gets so bright that the naked eye cannot behold it. And I soon discovered that by varying properties of the energy in the form of frequency, modulation and wavelength, the Tzo crystal would have different observable reactions as if these energies were somehow a way to control a Tzo crystal.

I am obligated to disclose that communication with the crystal is just a hunch not yet explainable with empirical evidence. I mention it because I have never been prone to altering my behavior because of a hunch yet this one gnaws at me in an atypical way. Also, this hunch is shared by all who have viewed a demonstration of the Tzo crystals responses. It can’t be explained, yet it deserves mention as a weird curiosity.

In one exciting reaction the Tzo crystal not only shone brightly with its unworldly hue, but it was producing a vast amount of energy that exceeded the input energy by many magnitudes. In fact the first time I stumbled upon this I struggled to shut down the reaction before my test chamber was overwhelmed.

The energy output of the Tzo crystal was an exotic form of energy that up until that time had been purely theoretical. I invited many acolytes of the theory for an observation session and there is wide conviction that it fits enough criteria of the theory to declare it a match. Of course in science there are always some decent viable alternative explanations.

In my opinion this energy brought by the Tzo crystals has the potential to transform human society to something we cannot even image.

And now I conclude my request for funding by stating that it is ESSENTIAL that this research continue. With proper understanding we may someday be able to control the Tzo Crystal’s abilities. I believe if that can be accomplished it will result in the greatest benefit so far in the human experience.

Sincerely,

Dr. David Tzo
Head of Research
Experimental Energies Institute

30 YEARS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ILUS

[rationale to extend funding on the Tzo Crystal artifact submitted by Dr. David Tzo.]

I wish to share news of my progress uncovering the nature of the Tzo crystal. Please make yourself familiar with my initial request for funding as this document builds upon that.

Outside our lab Dr Ken Moore continues to be resilient in his quest. He has discovered two additional Tzo crystals. One of them is a whopping 5 carrots in weight and another is less than half a carrot. He has turned over both artifacts to my lab where we reproduced the results of several experiments conducted on the original Tzo crystal.

Aside from confirming reproducible results with the new Tzo Crystals we have diligently pursued a greater understanding of Tzo crystals in general.

I’m excited to announce that we believe we have proven the use of the Tzo crystal to the precursors, and it was nothing we could have expected. The Tzo crystal is actually the key to opening a portal to another dimension! We have discovered that a Tzo crystal can connect our universe to another universe that emits pure energy – a lot of energy! The Tzo crystal does not produce energy itself but instead merely opens a portal to the energy dimension. The portal spews energy into our world–an unlimited and vast amount of energy. The Size of the power output seems to be directly proportional to the size of the Tzo Crystal.

After our shocking discovery we worked for nine more years to expand the size of the portal from microscopic up to reaching a diameter of one meter. At that time we started to attempt to send objects through the portal but were met with a new obstacle.

The portal geometry was foamy and chaotic. It roughly resembled a bubbly and distorted sphere. All the objects that we pushed through were violently ripped to pieces by vibrating and misaligned forces in the portal.

For the last four years leading up to now we have been focused on stabilizing the portal. We have made astounding progress. About six months ago the portal had grown in size to 3 meters and was stable enough to receive a stone obelisk without destroying it. It should be noted that we have a long way to go as the portal is still chaotic and the obelisk had such a rough ride that even the most resilient of our organic specimens would have been killed for sure.

That is where the research lies today. Now allow me to frame our progress in the form of what this means for our future!

I believe that if we continue at our current progress we will be able to achieve space folding in less than 5 years.

What is folding? Well, currently our most rapid form of travel is our Faster Than Light drives which allow vehicles to traverse space linearly. FTL speed has been improved many times over the past few millennia since its discovery, however, FTL will always suffer from a drawback put upon it by the sheer vastness of infinite Space. Every advancement in speed extends the range that we can travel to and yet no speed imaginable will ever be able to take us to everywhere we might want to go.

Folding Space allows a ship to enter a portal geometry in one place and then exit at any point in the universe in an instant. In short Space Folding has been the holy grail that scientists and engineers have sought for centuries. It will bring our awareness from a small sector in our greater galaxy to the universe itself!

In summary, Please approve the funding to allow this important research to continue. I promise that someday the continuation of this work will yield unparalleled fruit providing more benefit to our species than the discovery of fire itself!

Sincerely,

Dr. David Tzo
Head of Research
Experimental Energies Institute

VICTORY?

The Red Destiny’s power output doubled again and now exceeded the maximum output of an antimatter reactor core.

"Asymptote in 45 minutes", reported Fae

Alexander stood and resumed his holo broadcast. The anxiety-wracked population yearned to be soothed.

“I know many are shaken and unsure because of what just happened–that is only natural when the course of life rapidly takes an unexpected turn. Please give me a chance to explain to you what has happened and to assure you that our future is brighter than it ever has been.”

“First I want to clarify my position: Commander Mudd’s belief that unification is a prerequisite to victory is absolutely correct. I differ with him because of his vain and self-serving approach to merge our forces into one.”

“Consider the conflicting nature of our strategies: The Ronin fleet’s doctrine is that the Zell should be aggressively attacked whereas Mudd has reduced his fleet's options to purely defensive responses; when faced with a true challenge he favors making a cowardly escape using the civilian fold drives.”

“And consider our track records: The Ronins have scored many decisive victories. We have also experienced loss but never a major defeat. By contrast Mudd’s leadership was responsible for at least three catastrophic defeats in the early portion of the war--defeats that decimated the Alliance to the extent that we still have not recovered our full strength. Then he effectively quit the war and followed defensive policies out of fear that he would lose again.”

"One ancient truth that successful war strategist accepted long before the book of Astro Battle was written: 'He who abandons attack and embraces defense alone has already lost the war.' The harsh reality is that if we maintained a strictly defensive posture we would without question eventually be overrun and annihilated by our enemy."

"Mudd already lost four years ago. And had I not taken the bold action you just witnessed, the moment that Mudd took control of the Ronin fleet would have marked the moment that the entire human race lost to the Zell. Our complete extermination as a species would only be a question of time."

“But some may wonder what action I took exactly so I will share with you: I ordered clandestine elements of the Ronin’s to infiltrate the bridge crew of Mudd’s flagship--this took over a year to complete--our agents waited for this moment to surprise and apprehend him and his top ranking officers. This course of action-–quite uncharacteristic of the Ronins who favor direct conflict--this course was chosen because it was the least destructive option. Had we escalated to militarily conflict our total fighting force could have been greatly diminished and the only benefactor of the scenario would have been the Zell.”

"Also, I want to announce that I am now in possession of the control codes for the assets of the Alliance fleet AND control codes for the Arks and their fold drives. I have charged myself with the safety and survival of EVERY living human and I accept this noble burden with the utmost sense of responsibility–I hope that brings you comfort."

"Finally I will tell you how we will ultimately stop running away and bring an end to the Zell menace once and for all. Our first engagement towards this aim will commence in less than one hour: The complete destruction of the Zell armada that has been intimidating us for the last week. We will then launch a campaign that will bring us to the Zell’s strategic weakness–for just as we have three arks that carry our precious civilizations, the Zell also have three major vulnerabilities to their survival. We have recently learned that the Zell have three planetary hatcheries–-", Alexander’s speech was interrupted."

A holographic disturbance grew in a contorted fashion just in front of Mudd’s flagship. An unpleasant and loud audio feedback screech drowned out all other sounds for a moment. The holo projection operator was clearly inexperienced but after his initial stumble he successfully dialed the parameters in a generally correct vector. It took some seconds for the hologram’s form to become recognizable. It was Supreme Commander Mudd’s ten-story head and neck again. His hair and the collar of his uniform appeared to be quite disheveled. A trickle of blood flowing from his hairline suggested he had just been in a scuffle. He gave a look that hinted that he was resolute, determined and completely furious.

Mudd’s audio became coherent mid-sentence: “...CANNOT BE TOLERATED!”

Mudd rambled on excitedly touching on such topics: 'Alexander the traitor', 'Decent people would not stand for this' and various threats born from his insecurities asserting that Mudd could best Alexander in any combat scenario…

"Asymptote in 35 minutes", Fae reported.

A FIGHT AFTER ALL

Alexander looked stunned the first seconds of Mudd's rant. He deactivated his holo projection.

Alexander’s disappearing hologram agitated Mudd even more. "Hiding now!? Who’s the real coward!"

Alexander sat in his command chair and urgently fiddled with his console in order to connect with Slyther. Slyther’s hologram appeared–his sinister smile was gone and in its place was a stoic expression.

"What happened?" Alexander asked urgently.

"I cannot ascertain the specifics, but it appears that elements of Mudd’s lower ranking team somehow surprised our agents–even though we took every precaution to prevent this scenario--in the ensuing struggle our agents were likely killed but possibly just subdued. In my judgment we have lost control of Mudd’s flagship and cannot hope to retake it."

"DAMMIT!", Alexander exclaimed. He banished Slyther’s hologram in a frustrated motion.

"Asymptote in 30 minutes. Power continues to grow." Fae-Dra interjected.

Alexander made an expression of agitation yet made no response. He was staring at the floor, his mind racing with anxiety as he tried to quickly construct a plan B. The avenues to many strategies were now closed… He had already hoodwinked his adversaries by leading them to believe he would surrender… His speech had been cut off right before he was going to inspire the Alliance men and women to join his banner–although he had the control codes they were not terribly useful without the loyalties of the flesh and blood assets. His fleet was significantly smaller and not prepared for a battle. Mudd’s ship was a massive capital ship that in order for the small Red Destiny to defeat would probably require a major blunder from Mudd.

Mudd was still yelling and threatening him. His weapons were powered up and a visible blue shield barrier was flickering around the entire ship.

It looked bad, yet Alexander had a history of quickly pivoting to new strategies when things didn’t go as planned. And a plan came to him. He stood and reactivated his Holoprojector. He showed complete confidence and zero fear as he interrupted Mudd’s rant. Mudd listened probably in the hopes that whatever Alexander said would make him MORE mad.

"Commander Mudd! I’m glad to see that you didn’t just hand over your fleet but instead decided to honor me with a worthy challenge. I graciously accept! I have made the claim that you are not worthy to lead the combined fleet and that my leadership would be more suitable. From a certain point of view this conflict doesn’t involve our fleets at all but is really a conflict between two men. So let’s treat it as such! I formally challenge you to a duel! I’ll even–"

Mudd had heard enough and interrupted: "Accepted!" His hologram disappeared and shortly after Alexander surmised that the discussion was over and deactivated his holoprojection as well.

This was a great development. Alexander's skill at melee combat was renowned whereas there was no record of Mudd ever engaging in a man-to-man skirmish. Alexander had relied on Mudd's anger to blunt his better judgement.

Alexander relaxed in his chair then suddenly was caught off guard by what he saw on the main viewscreen. A stream of energy cannon blasts from multiple origin points dotting Mudd’s ship and each stream would converge on The Red Destiny in a fraction of a second.

"FAE!", he alerted!

However, No surprise attack imaginable could catch Fae*Dra off guard. She used the exceed engine to nearly instantaneously zip to a position still in front of–but now 15 degrees away from the centerpoint–Mudd’s flagship and a moment later the streams converged on empty space.

The Exceed Engine is what gave the companion class ship its agility and agility was essential to fulfilling the companion class’s role. The Exceed Engine performs property shifting on the ship and all its contents. In an instant the Exceed Engine would reduce the mass of its ship to a micro fraction allowing for a substantial and nearly instant traversal when paired with a coordinated propulsion impulse. The engine could only be engaged for a fraction of a second then its effect would expire causing the ship to resume its pre exceed velocity in an instant. A major drawback to using exceed is that it also reduced the ship’s atomic cohesion when active which made the ship fragile to the point where collision with a microscopic particle would most likely result in the catastrophic destruction of the ship. Using Exceed required beyond exceptional piloting skill.

"I was challenging him to a face-to-face duel!" Alexander exclaimed to Fae-Dra who gave the complaint no mind.

A new volley of bolts fired aimed towards The Red Destiny’s new position and like before Fae-Dra elegantly used Exceed to dodge.

Alexander accepted the situation and shifted back to strategizing mode.

His first action was to send a hasty communiqué to his fleet not to interfere in the battle. As a matter of fact he made the communiqué public so that the Alliance fleet would see his command as well. He knew that a total fleet engagement wouldn’t be good for anyone.

"Dammit, Pete, Now I need you...", He hastily summoned his lower Tactical Engineering staff and issued quick commands, "Find me a way to win this fast.", then shut down the channel. The scenario was dire. Although The Red Destiny could easily perforate all twenty decks of Mudd's flagship, getting through the shields and energized armor WAS a problem.

Alexander issued his first attack order to Fae-Dra: "Sap him." Sapping was a strategy companion classes used in order to weaken a powerful defencive shield.

Fae-Dra immediately complied. She used exceed to close range with the shield to mere centimeters; she then activated The Red Destiny’s Razon shields and boosted directly into the thick shield barrier. The Red Destiny was deflected but not harmed and the total power of Mudd’s shield had been drained. Immediately after deflection Fae-Dra used exceed to put a safe distance between the two ships.

The Razon Shields hovered mere millimeters away from the hull plating of The Red Destiny and wrapped the ship in a bright yellow glow. razons were not defensive in nature but instead reinforced the strength of the material they flowed over and annihilated a fraction of a millimeter of any materials they grazed. The Razon Shields were employed in two attack variants called Shearing or Sapping depending upon if material or energy was the target. The maneuver was the linchpin of the companion class’s most common attack: it would literally slice through its adversary’s equipment, shearing through its materials and exiting on the other side.

When attacking an enemy object with a reflective shield the Razons would sap the shield barrier’s power forcing the enemy to replenish the loss with a non-trivial quantity of energy. The sapping technique when repeated many times would eventually cause the object to exhaust its usable power to the point that it couldn’t maintain its shields and then the companion ship would finish the job with a Shearing attack.

Mudd replenished his shield’s loss as expected. And he continued to wildly lob cannon blasts at The Red Destiny only for them to be dodged by Fae*Dra’s piloting.

At least Mudd seemed to agree that all out fleet war was inappropriate as he ordered his auxiliary capital ships to surround the battle zone and emit barrier shields which contained his erratic cannon blasts. Well, it might have been a precaution to prevent collateral damage, or it could have been to eliminate any chance of The Red Destiny’s escape.

"After Image", Alexander instructed Fae.

The After Image technique created 32 very precise holographic representations of The Red Destiny surrounding Mudd’s battleship. Fae-Dra used exceed to rapidly replace a random hologram with the real Red Destiny. And in a fraction of a second she would linger then exceed again to another random hologram. Additionally, she would shuffle the image positions in a random pattern. Mudd's crew could not get a reliable firing solution as each image was either a hologram or The Red Destiny’s momentary location.

Fae*Dra maintained a fury of after image leaps mixed with sapping attacks. The technique was working and Alexander could detect severe taxation on Mudd’s available power--but Alexander was already behind schedule with no telling how long the sapping would take. The Red Destiny's computer made the initial estimate: It would take 4 hours to sap the shields. He wanted fifteen minutes for the next phase of his plan.

"Asymptote in 25 minutes." Fae-Dra calmly asserted. Her present challenge did not cause her to break a sweat it seemed.

Alexander opened a hologram that displayed a searchable schematic of Mudd’s flagship. He studied it very intently. "Where is Pete when you need him..." He lamented. Then a new long shot came to mind: "computer, find an open a direct channel to Tactical Engineer Lester Mann." He said so with desperate reluctance. He thought the prospects of getting his half brother's help to be dubious and returned his complete concentration to finding a weakness in Mudd’s ship. Fae-Dra continued her dodges and attacks showing no signs of fatigue. Mudd tried a variety of techniques to get a lock or in some way to damage The Red Destiny but nothing came close to landing a hit. Alexander's demeanor became increasingly agitated.

Suddenly Mudd stopped all its attacks and his ship began to back away. Alexander was aware of the change yet did not break focus with his tactical hologram. He directed Fae-Dra to cease the After Image technique. He leaned in even further to the holographic schematics as if he thought that would make him more perceptive. "Common Tactical Engineers... Pete would have had something by now... and Lester... Lester..."

As Mudd backed up the capital ships providing the enclosing shield closed formation. The final strategy became clear: Mudd began charging up his main cannon. A ball of energy was coalescing right before Mudd’s ship.

Alexander noticed what was happening a little late. What he correctly surmised was that Mudd intended to fire a powerful and wide main cannon blast that would fill the entire shielded arena. Mudd’s capital ships would be fine behind their deflection shields but everything inside the battle arena would be obliterated.

Alexander was quick to pivot when conditions changed. Although the power core of The Red Destiny was now outputting many times more power than Mudd’s ship, none of his ship systems could handle that much power… well none of them except for the one that Alexander did not want to use.

Companion ship class ships rely on the exceed drive for defense and the Razon shields for offense, but it had one more exceptional ability, its trump card if you will. The Red Destiny had a main cannon of its own… and it was capable of accepting all of Tzo crystal’s energy output and even more. The drawback of the main cannon was that it consumed all of The Red Destiny’s energy which would cause the Tzo crystal reactor to completely shut down leaving Alexander and Fae-Dra vulnerable. The most important consideration when using a companion class’s main cannon was if the blast would be powerful enough to completely wipe out the enemy or if there were other assets in the fight that could defend the depleted ship until the battle was concluded.

In this case the conditions for using the Main Cannon were met. The Tzo crystal could create a blast that would overwhelm Mudd’s blast and cause the complete destruction of his ship. But Alexander didn’t want to use the cannon this way. First that cannon blast was for the Zell and second he dreaded the idea of killing his friend Pete who he convinced to surrender for his benefit only a few hours earlier.

He had to decide fast and since he hadn’t landed on any other options he really had no choice. “Prepare to fire the main cannon, Fae”, Alexander reluctantly said.

Fae-Dra activated many subsystems through-out the ship. The Red Destiny had to transform its shape before it could start the cannon build up and ultimate firing.

Alexander turned off his console holograms with heavy resignation. For the first time he observed the main viewscreen. He looked at Mudd's ship...and...He saw something! Alexander let out a hearty laugh and slapped his lap several times. “Cancel Main Cannon attack!” He said. And Fae-Dra reversed the process.

“I’m such an idiot… if I had only turned off the tactical readouts earlier!” Fae-Dra was uninterested in Alexander’s editorial mumbles.

“It seems our friend Mudd, in his haste to destroy us, forgot to close the hatch to the main hangar that he opened to invite us to our surrender. Well, I say at this point we accept his invitation and show up in his hangar without delay!” Alexander then gave Fae-Dra more specific instructions on what he had in mind. And Fae-Dra and their ship was ready.

Mudd’s main cannon finished its build up phase and dropped his ship’s shields just a moment before unleashing his attack. The Red Destiny seemed to make no effort to avoid its fate. The arena filled with blinding light. It lasted for several seconds then began to fade. And the audience saw… Nothing. And there was a great pause as the Ronins, the Alliance and every soul aboard the Arks slowly processed the conclusion of a long struggle and what it meant.

Mudd celebrated immediately. He restrained himself from a press release for a while to let the magnitude of the event sink in. The other capital ships solemnly deactivated their containment shields one by one. The conflict was over and now the arena had to be torn down.

Then an event too shocking to believe! The Bridge on top of Mudd’s ship burst open in a mighty explosion and from the exit wound a magnificent orange contrail grew. The contrail zipped around performing several sharp zigzags and then suddenly came to a complete stop. There floated in space The Red Destiny victorious and unharmed.

"Asymptote in 20 minutes."

UNIFICATION AT LAST

The Red Destiny did a victory roll and turned towards the Ronin fleet. Several ships projected holograms of their crew cheering for the Commander they thought they lost. The Red Destiny then slowed and made a non-threatening drift towards the Alliance Fleet.

Mudd's flagship was disabled, but not destroyed. She listed and her contents were still spilling out from the puncture. Mudd and his command crew had certainly been killed and more would die in the fires raging through the ship.

Alexander broadcast on a private channel to the Ronins: "Deploy marines to perform rescue and suppression of the survivors. Do not allow the Alliance fleet to participate in the rescue." Then he summoned a hologram of Slyther: “ If any surviving bridge officers are encountered, kill them as discreetly as possible. What of Pete?", Alexander asked.

"I have my snakes searching." Slyther responded.

"FIND HIM.", Alexander ordered. Slyther’s always-half-smile grew imperceptively then he gave a light bow and backed into the darkness.

"Asymptote in 18 minutes," Fae reported.

"Now to secure the loyalty of the Defence fleet. I wish I could do this later, but it has to be now."

"Fae, Are there any corpses floating in space?", Alexander asked.

"Seventeen.", Said Fae.

"Let me see them." seventeen squares each an image of a corpse jumped on Alexander's console. "Tractor them with dignity to the Red Destiny."

"Dignity!?" Fae said confusedly.

"Gently," Alexander corrected himself, "Place sixteen of the corpses in two rows extending out in front of and slightly below the center line of the Red Destiny. Straighten their bodies. Take this one", he selected one of the corpses from his corpse menu, "And make his velocity approach the red destiny slowly along the center line and in between the two rows of corpses... Do not straighten his body, I like the mangled look it has. Time everything so the final body meets with me right at the base of the two rows, nearest the Red Destiny. Launch a spy drone and have it capture a holo of me."

He donned his space helmet and an automatic process began making his armor space worthy.

"How much time do I have?", Alexander asked.

"2 minutes"

"That will have to do.", Alexander ambled down a hatch on the side of the bridge, exited the forward space hatch, and floated slowly into the dark of space approaching the uneasy Alliance fleet.

He drifted solemnly towards the rows of the dead. The holo drone travelled a meter before him broadcasting to every last human that lived.

His motion came to a rest in between the first row of the dead. The seventeenth entered the scene and Alexander gently stopped its momentum by cradling the body. Alexander removed his dark-red cape, the symbol of the Ronin Commander, and wrapped it around the mangled body of the poor Alliance man. And then he steadied the bundle at his feet, in the same plane as the eight other corpses between the two rows but aligned perpendicularly. Fae subtly used her tractor beam to straighten the final body.

He spoke slowly and stoically. "I speak to all who serve in the Alliance fleet. And I ask every other human to hear my words, for it is the sacrifice of the Alliance fleet that has protected our race’s future since the Zell first attacked."

"Few soldiers escape death. It never becomes easier to endure. As noble soldiers your heart can never be numb to this experience. That is what makes you human. Humanity is amazing that way."

"The life of a single soldier is worth more than the lives of the entire Zell fleet. But soldiers are made to go in harms way, and soldiers protect what is precious to them no matter the cost."

"The life that has just left us, the life of these soldiers before me, was not given to protect what they cherished. These lives were squandered in the name of greed and arrogance. These lives were paid as tribute to serve Commander Mudd’s ambitions."

"I killed these men. I crushed because of WHO they fought for.... But I did so to protect WHAT they fought for."

"More soldiers will die today, but none more will die in vain. For we must face an enemy many times our strength, before a larger armada of an unfathomable size bears down upon us in less than a day!"

"Now I ask you to Follow me. Fight for me. Defend what these soldiers protected with their lives… They protected you. They protected humanity itself. And that WE will do. And we will do it Not by running away, skulking into ever deeper levels of hell hoping our enemy tires of pursuit. We will not only defend the precious human experience, but we will bring an end to the Zell for good!"

"You have heard my rationale and now you must choose. Defenceless, I stand before you and I ask you to join my fleet or avenge your unworthy Commander and kill me now. "

A pause followed.

Crew Holo projections began appearing in front of the Alliance fleet. Emotional clapping and approval poured out.

A communiqué from Slyther whispered in Alexander's earpiece "We have messages from the entire defence fleet. They have consented to join you." from Slyther.

"Asymptote in 15 minutes", Fae Reported. Little time remained for Alexander’s plan.

"I am deeply humbled that you have accepted me as your Commander. I will treat your trust with the honor that it has always deserved!"

"Now Let us crush the Zell and rid the universe of their evil forever! TO WAR!"

Loud cheering erupted from holo projections of both fleets.

Fae*Dra tractored Alexander and the bodies into the entry portal. The bodies lay strewn about the exit ready room in complete disarray. Alexander had to shove and kick them into place as he had no other free space to store them. Alex retrieved his red cape from the mangled corpse, put it on and resumed his position in the Bridge.

He transmitted another prepared message instructing the former Alliance fleet where to maneuver and how they were going to participate in this battle. For the most part he left the Alliance fleet in the same protective position, but he moved some Seventy-Five thousand phalanx unit and Twenty-Five thousand skirmishers to the front line.

"Stink!", Fae complained. “Eject them!” She posited.

"They won't stink for a while and that might send the wrong signal to the fleet. Sorry we have to tolerate The corpses for now.", Alexander explained.

Fae lit the boosters and the Red Destiny raced to the front planes. A ronin entourage followed.

"Now for the battle of Illus and victory against the Zell", Alex said confidently.

PART 2: THE BATTLE OF ILLUS

ON THE ZELL

EIGHT YEARS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ILLUS

*Observations from Mr. Gary Ungie former inhabitant of Habitat Suzi–a small settlement on the frontier of Human space colonization that was overrun in the initial blitzkrieg by the Zell. Mr. Ungie's hobby is alien taxonomy. Mr. Ungie does not have any expert training in this field, however he is presently the most qualified person to report on the Zell. *

The following is my report on my superficial observations of the Zell – made while in the act of narrowly escaping death. Please understand that I have recorded the best information that I could scrounge from my memory which may in some cases be inaccurate as I was under severe duress during that harrowing experience.

I was fortunate enough to hide in a basement structure with a small upper window with one way glass which gave me a half hour to observe the Zell’s mayhem and murder. It was a very upsetting and terrifying experience watching the slaughter of innocent people that I had now power to help. I assumed it was only a matter of time before the Zell found me. Fortunately I was not found and much later rescued.

COMMONALITIES

I have observed four different types of Zell. I will describe their commonalities first:

All Zell are covered in a black segmented exoskeleton which seems to serve as armor. It is not a passive armor but one that is somehow greatly strengthened by this green energy to the point that not a single inhabitant’s civilian weapons have any effect on the Zell. The armor is rough and bumpy and sometimes has little spiky protrusions.

The Zell have arms that terminate in three grasping claw-like fingers which have three bendable segments allowing the Zell’s fingers to bend like ours. One of the fingers is opposed to the other two so they are capable of picking up objects however I doubt that they can perform any fine motor skills.

The Zell typically walks hunched over on all fours. They walk on the knuckles in a motion that is surprisingly similar to that of a Chimpanzee. They frequently shift to their hind legs when they need to use their hands. They can actually walk bipedally quite well--yet their preferred mode of locomotion is quadrupedal.

The head is sloped. Eyes are a glowing green color that matches the flickering green light that sometimes sparks from their armor when they receive a blow. The mouth is beak-like with sharp serrations or teeth. The larger Zell caste that I will describe momentarily frequently used their beaks to bite off the heads of many unfortunate victims.

I saw no instance of the Zell using tools or weapons. It seems that their capabilities were innate.

The first extraordinary offensive technique I observed was Zell emitting a bolt of destructive energy from his mouth. The devastating effect was on par with our weapons, however, Zell weapons seem to lack precision. It seems Zell favor large swaths of damage over precise targeting.

The second technique of the Zell was a melee attack. They would hoist themselves on their back legs and some sort of energized claw would extend from their knuckles approximately 30 cm long. Absolutely nothing could stop their claws from shredding their people or things. Again they certainly lacked precision in this attack as well and instead relied on rapid and chaotic slicing which diced equipment and people into small pieces.

DISTURBING SIDENOTE

One very disturbing side note: They spoke English proficiently although their grammar was quite poor. They even spoke to each other in plain english leaving me mystified as to what their original language must have been. I can supply no reasonable theories to explain this bizarre twist.

CASTES

There were four distinct forms of the Zell. will now endeavor to describe:

• RABBLE The rabble caste measured a mere meter in height and were by far the most numerous. The Zell relied on superior numbers of this caste--the backbone of their waring strategy--however I am not an expert in military strategy. The Rabble would often form phalanxes as they encroached upon their victims very similar to the phalanx formations adopted by our War Bots. They also seemed quite expendable as I observed the death of one Rabble Caste member–not by the hand of a human–but by another Zell presumably as punishment. They left the dead Zell’s body. They seem to have no regard for life – not even their own.

• BRUTE A Brute was a gigantic muscle-bound caste ranging in height from 3 to 4 meters. I never observed an instance of a Brute speaking. The Brutes often grabbed people in order to bite their heads off. Unlucky is the human soldier who will find himself in a position where he will have to encounter a Brute.

• BOSS

  With individuals from the Rabble and Brute castes being so dumb it stands to reason that another smarter caste would be commanding them. And this seemed to be the boss caste's role. Bosses were small, about 1/3rd of a meter. I actually didn’t even notice them until one started barking out orders to a Rabble phalanx. I saw two bosses; in both cases they rode upon the back of a Brute. Unlike the other caste members the bosses seemed to be more task focused. They never cheered over a killing or emoted disappointment over a setback. They did seem to me completely incapable of participating in the battle as their arms and legs were thin to the point that I would guess they may be completely vestigial or at least only good for hanging on.

• ELITE

  By far the most terrifying Caste was the Elite. Just below 2 meters tall and leaner build than the other Castes. I only saw one Elite, but I assume there are more. He was deadly like the brutes and rabbles yet also intelligent like the bosses. As a matter of fact I would say they were more deadly and more intelligent than any caste. I speculate that the elite may have authority over the bosses–but I didn't see definitive proof that this was the case. I guessed from his demeanor and the wide berth given to him by boss, brute and rabble alike as if they respected him. Perhaps their battle was going as planned and he had no need to command anyone.

  The other thing that set this Elite apart was that he was very precise. I witnessed him leap through the air and stab an unlucky soul through his face. The Elite’s claw exited the back of his victim’s head and protruded several additional centimeters. It was absolutely horrid to watch.

CONCLUSIONS

My best theory when I consider the whole of the Zell anatomies is that every feature is for the benefit of warmongering. Particularly the lack of a hand that can employ fine motor skills leads me to believe that they are incapable of creating the technological feats they displayed. My guess is that there are other castes-perhaps a science and/or engineering caste that innovates for these creatures.

Thank you for reading my report, I hope it helps repel this vial threat to humanity.

Sincerely,

Gary Ungie

Professional Gardener and Armchair Alien Taxonomist

*Autopsy & Dissection of Zell corpse recovered from the Battle of Nord performed by Alien Biologist Dr. Frank DeWitt

7 YEARS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF ILUS

Before reading this document you should be familiar with the report by "armchair taxonomist" Mr. Gary Ungie. His accurate and detailed explanation of the Zell’s behavior and external physiology has proven to be consistent with all subsequent observations.

There are a few additive data points observed after Mr. Ungie’s account:

• The Zell are capable of surviving in the vacuum of space and other environments without need of a pressure suit. In fact Zell are often seen walking on the surface of their ships.

• Zell are capable of a weird form of flight. They can propel themselves with a kind of plasma exhaust that vents from a dorsal segment boundary in their carapace. They appear to have limited range before they run out of propellant. Also to be clear an individual Zell cannot perform anything approaching Faster Than Light speeds, and they can not catch up to or outmaneuver a ship dedicated to space travel. Their flight capabilities are only employed on a local battlefield in open space or in the atmosphere of a planet. They seem to use space flight only for hopping onto an enemy ship.

• Zell have a great variety and quantity of ships in their fleet--we estimate their total fighting force to be over 3 Billion vehicles. The Zell vehicles are covered in the same black carapace as the various fighting castes leading us to theorize that Zell ships are actually another caste of Zell that grows itself into a space worthy vehicle that can perform FTL travel. We’ve been calling this the Ship Caste for lack of a better term.

ZELL DISSECTION

Zell blood was like nothing we had ever encountered. It was green in color, but contained tiny sparkles of yellow energetic particles which turned out to be a refined and highly radioactive substance. We concluded that a Zell does not get its energy from food but atomic fission. They perhaps have a mechanism of refreshing their radioactive blood since we determined that the radioactive materials would only last for 20 years. If they cannot replenish their blood then we believe the maximum lifespan of a Zell is around 20 years.

Several carapace samples were sent out for analysis and scanning and determined that the carapace was laced with a special cell that did not seem as if it naturally evolved in the Zell but was perhaps inserted into them before birth. These cells gave the Zell’s carapace the ability to energize and maintain its strength that regular projectiles, beam attacks or energy blasts could not hope to penetrate.

Things got particularly interesting the moment we reached the creature’s throat. For we saw the terminus of what certainly provided the Zell with the ability to emit energy bolts. The structure reached deep into what would normally be a stomach but instead was a fascinating technology laced object. This object seemed similar to the foreign cells in the carapace but was certainly not a match for any of the Zell’s natural biology.

The object appeared to be glass-like, although it was a transparent material we have not encountered before. Inside there was a vast network of technology that we are still attempting to understand. The insides of the object appeared to be white but held a slightly pale green tint and this green color was not a match with the zell blood. We continued to dismantle our specimen and encountered several other instances of this tube like mechanisms.

A large mechanism that seemed to control and be fused with the Zell’s flight apparatus located on the fifth segment break of the dorsal side. The flight controller was directly connected to two large biological bladders which was filled with liquid hydrogen obviously because it was the main propellant employed when the Zell was flying.

We removed multiple enhancements for the arms and legs. Our best guess is that the technology was used to convert radioactive fuel, a powerful chemical consumed by the Zell’s muscles in order to facilitate super strength.

There were several more components found throughout the body that we still don’t have an explanation for.

Thank you for your kind attention . We hope these insights lead to the total defeat of the Zell someday.

With Hope,

Dr. Frank DeWitt
Alien Biologist
The Alliance Fleet Science Corps

POSTURING BEFORE THE BATTLE

The Zell had no inkling of the civil war that had just occurred behind the human lines. And if they had they wouldn’t have cared, they just wanted to fight the strongest and would have probably appreciated the humans for thinning the herd so as not to waste time.

Between the opposing forces no man's land was sandwiched by the human phalanx shield wall and the Zell cloud–a chaotic and unwieldy-looking green vapor mass of Zell nano-machines that applied a cumulative repulsive force like a force field, but a little more. Zell were able to pass through their cloud because of technology that humans did not understand.

More importantly, anything that the Zell DIDN’T want in the cloud would experience fantastic drag, like it was in sticky tar and tar that zapped its prey with frequent destructive shocks as well. Breaching the thicker parts of the cloud would mean getting the fleet trapped and certainly eventually killed.

The front line of Zell themselves lived inside the cloud like a mischief of mice living in a loaf of bread. And still like mice many Zell poked their heads through the cloud in excited anticipation of some opening insults then they would dart back inside presumably zipping to other places via an elaborate labyrinth of pathways not comprehensible by the alliance's greatest super computers.

From the lookyloos it was clear that anxiety with the Zell was growing that the humans would do another space fold and cheat them of a victory, or a spanking defeat… either way the Zell just wanted some fun..

The Ronin fleet used a light mirroring field to prevent the Zell from seeing clearly past the phalanx wall. It had the effect of reflecting everything so the Zell could see themselves but not behind. The Zell weren’t too terribly happy about the mirror field as they were not much into looking at themselves or grooming for that matter.

Then the action began. The Ronnins deactivated the mirror field and behind was revealed The Red Destiny and the companion cavalry sporting a cone formation.

The Zell went nuts with excitement!

"Twenty minutes till Asymptote ", Fae Reported

"Let's rile them with the Holoprojector", Alexander said.

Fae activated the hollow projector. This time it was Alexander standing with his arms folded, his battle armor showing and his cape flowing behind him.

"Attention Zell Scum. Today your relationship with human kind as our most unworthy foe will end. Prepare for your entire species to be reduced to atoms.", The hologram went off.

Zell understood human language and most importantly (long ago noticed by Alexander) they LOVED being taunted like children. As a matter of fact the Zell was Alexander’s biggest fan and they relished and repeated his speeches right before he sent them to hell.

The Zell seemed characteristically thrilled, they spilled out of the exterior of their ship and seemed to be joyously yelling and threatening the humans. Often times they said things Alexander had said before with awkward modifications since they weren’t very creative at repartee. Vid screens throughout the fleet provided multiple close up views of the excited Zell faces. The riling amused and boldened the warriors.

"Commence", Alexander commanded.

CHAPTER: ROUGH EACH OTHER UP A LITTLE

Zell Skirmishers began spraying the enemy shield wall with bolt blasts and medium cannon fire.

Tractor beams from the Zell fleet crossed the cloud divide and pushed and pulled the Ronin Phalanxs.

One-Thousand Zell warships rounded the South-West shield wall and launched a Zell marine attack.

The Zell marine attack decided many battles. Zell warships launched thousands of Marine pods that burst open in proximity to an enemy vessel. One Hundred per pod would attack the hull furiously. Eventually the Zell marines would gain entry and slaughter the inhabitants. This attack always caused the most casualties to the alliance side and was a constant terror.

But top Tactical Engineering Support ‘Reason’ & ‘Reksep’ had been working on a counter measure and had a little trick in store for the Zell this time: the gravimectron trap. Thousands of them.

Eight small directed gravimectrons arranged in a large square formation, in this case each gravimectron inhabited one vertex of the cube, the emitter of the gravimectrons faced their diagonal cohorts. Inside the square a phalanx of 32 spear bots positioned their spears into a pin cushion arrangement. The Zell could not resist hand to hand combat -- even when they knew it was a trap. As Zell Marines pressed the spearbots the bots were programmed to give space easing back to the point that only the Zell was in the center of the gravimectron square. The gravimectrons would then fire simultaneously, crushing the Zell in the center point.

The Gravimectron trap worked quite well. Hundreds of thousands of Zell were crushed to death and the most effective Zell attack was now impotent and obsolete. Go TacEngs!

The spearbots held the line as The second drone cavalry swooped in and engaged the unprotected pod launchers, tearing them to shreds.

More skirmishing fire was exchanged. The Zell phalanxes began to close the distance between the planes. The Humans accelerated to greet them. Shield emitters crashed against each other. Ronnins deployed their lancebots to sap the enemy shields, Zell extended their infiltrator tubes to inject Zell marines behind the human shield walls. The human phalanxes began to be pushed back a bit, which was Supreme Commanders Alexander’s plan. The impact of the assailing shield is dampened if the weaker shield is yielding space.

"5 minutes till asymptote", Fae reported.

"Let's go."Alexander commanded. "Deploy the Shimmer"

From behind the human lines The Red Destiny began a leisurely parallel drift heading towards the East side of the Zell cloud. The cavalry assumed a cone formation with the Red Destiny serving as the very tip.

The Red Destiny and all her cavalry did nothing. They just continued to drift. They were halfway to the radius of the shield wall and seemed to be walking off the playing field.

Every Cloud Zell's desire to get his claws on The Red Destiny and tear it to shreds caused the Zell cloud to grow a slight bulge every where the blighted red ship was seen.

The Red Destiny boosted her contrails and began a little showy dance, diving in and pulling away from the cloud, doing flips and loops. It was all like kneading dough… the cloud continued to bulge and started to stretch behind its original boundary as it looked like Alexander was about to try the stupidest flanking maneuver of all time. Be assured the Zell and any competent fleet would be ready for something like that with a barrage of powerful cannon blasts.. But this was Alexander and he was quite cagy and unpredictable. No one knew what would happen next.

"One minute till asymptote.", Fae reported.

"Commence fallback.",Alexander commanded to his entire fleet.

The Human phalanxes began an unexpected reverse acceleration, a considerable gap between the opposing sides widened and the Zell hesitated to take the ground.

A small gap in the phalanxes allowed the cavalry to slip between the warring fleets. The cone formation continued its drift in the same direction but at an accelerated pace. In moments Alexander could super boost and be lost to the Zell forever.

The Bulge grew larger.

The Calvary accelerated even more. They ignited their offensive razon sheilds in unison but they held a steady course.

The Bulge grew larger and more agitated.

A Jolt of more acceleration and a slight turn towards the cloud.

The Bulge grew larger. At this point the Zell cloud was starting to resemble a deformed disc.

The Calvary accelerated and began a series of grazing maneuvers. The cone would turn slightly and graze the edge of the Zell disturbing the cloud and kicking up huge swirls of energy and then pivot back away from the cloud. It looked like a skipping stone bouncing against the water. Each graze followed some acceleration and steeper angle of attack. The hits got harder. One, Two, Three grazes; if the pattern continued it would be considered a punch maneuver on the fourth attack.

The Zell could be seen behind the cloud, every graze seemed to exponentially increase the excitement and the activity of the Zell. And yes, it bulged even more. The bulge was stretching resources on the Port side of the cloud defence and the cloud there had thinned as much as the bulge had bulged.

"We have reached the asymptote. Five minute until loss of containment.", Fae Reported.

"Second Attack: Commence!",Alexander Shouted.

CLOUD BREAKER

As the cavalry came to the apogee between the Third and Forth bounce, The Red Destiny and all the cavalry seemed to rev their thrusters to maximum. Blue contrails became thicker and more violent as if a huge amount of plasma was just about to erupt
into a huge burst of acceleration, the offensive shields flickered with greater intensity and looked as if they would explode. And then: The Forth bounce didn't happen.

The Cone formation collapsed with every ship traveling in a different direction All in the Calvary Lit their boosters, and departed in great speed, leaving the excited Zell in the bulge with nothing but contrails and The Red Destiny.

At that moment the calvarie’s shimmer dissipated and the Zell then saw a host of 60 thousand Ronin ships that past and surrounded the Red Destiny. Allied Skermishers began a massive barrage against the Bulge. The cannons of several battleships fired in synchronization. Total Confusion rained on the other side of the cloud, Some of the Zell couldn't see what had happened to the Red Destiny, others knew what had happened and began a desperate rush to the Center. Many Zell collided with each other. In some cases fighting broke out between Zell ships -- retribution for collisions.

A barrage of torpedo spears hit the Zell cloud right at its thinnest. And snap! The cloud broke apart in one place…. And in that moment The Red Destiny emerged with 6 companion escorts in tow and zipped through the momentary opening in the Zell cloud.

The trick had been revealed even to the enemy. The first Red Destiny was a fake… a decoy used to siphon the cloud’s strength and make it snap, creating an opening for the real deal to enter and start causing mayhem where the Zell didn’t want them.

"Thirty seconds till loss of containment.", Fae Reported.

The Red Destiny and Companions passed through the cloud wound on the Zell side. Behind the cloud many hundreds of thousands of gigantic zell drones produced and belched the green cloud and even more transmitted energy into it.

The companion ships inverted their hexagonal formation like pedals pealing back from a flower and transformed themselves into cannon mode. A quick build up followed and then simultaneously they emitted a medium powered wide angled blast in a 360 degree spread pattern around the exit wound with the Red Destiny slowing so as not to lose them.

Violent torrents of energy ripped through the unprotected cloud ships, melting and smashing them, creating spall that bounced off other ships for hundreds of kilometers.

The Zell cloud was not then destroyed, but it was compromised and its power was sapping rapidly… total collapse was imminent and the Allied forces then pressed the attack.

OUTFLANK

A stream of Zell spikes, radioactive rocks that look like broken stalactites, moved to intercept the Red Destiny. The Spikes ranged in size from a meter to twenty meters in length. The density of the spike field made it almost impossible for any ship to pass through unscathed and they had sophisticated homing ability.

"Can We Avoid?",Alexander Asked.

"45 seconds until loss of containment.", Fae Answered

“That means ‘no’” Alexander said to himself… okay, stay on course.

It was a gamble. A Zell spike field crossing was difficult to pull of even for Fae. And she had 6 additional ships in formation.

Companion class fighters relied on a synergy between a human pilot and computer. No human could think fast enough to perform many of the maneuvers, so the pilot would orchestrate the navigation by signaling a series of pre programmed maneuvers that the Computer would execute. It worked well for techniques like the After Image technique which required precise timing, but the system didn't compare to Fae... that's another reason why a Companion Class ship is usually operated with six crew members.

The remainder of the cavalry expertly dodged the first wave of spikes, using lateral exceed to dodge the larger ones. The density was so great that they relied on the deflector shields to bat away the smaller spikes. It was a bumpy ride. The companions were tossed about.

A second wave approached and the density was greater. Two escort ships exploded one after another. One suffered a minor failure in her exceed engine normally a minor setback it was fatal in this case… the escort reduced speed and reversed to escape the spikes never to be seen again.

They pushed on. At the end of the wave three ships had been lost or destroyed.

"Twenty Seconds until loss of containment." Fae reported as she dove the Red Destiny into the third and final spike field.

Confusion was so great inside the final spike field that Fae and Alexander could not monitor the other ships. The Red Destiny was buffeted and damaged by a few smaller spikes, at one point Fae squeezed the ship between two spikes so close together that the Red Destiny scraped it's dorsal and ventral sections. The damage made the Red Destiny harder to control and The Red Destiny had two more very close calls.

As Fae's eyes darted back and forth no more than Six degrees at unhuman speeds. She was operating at her limit. Fae noticed something as they approached the end of the third wave. Then her eyes moved to a position twenty degrees portward, there was the end of the third spike wave and she noticed something else, but was under too much load to explain it to Alexander.

The Spike Wave ended suddenly. And The Red Destiny immediately began to veer off course in the wrong direction.

"What Happened?", Alexander Asked?

"A trap. We in a tractor", Fae Reported. She cut the boosters and greatly reduced the output of the main thruster. The Red Destiny

The Two other escorts were also caught in other tractor beams and one of them had already reached the source of the tractor beam and was completely destroyed.

Slowly The Red Destiny was pulled to her death.

"Ten seconds until the loss of containment.", Fae Reported.

Alexander shook with unease. He was so close to the Flagship now that if he could get beyond the flagship the battle would be decisive. He punched his armchair in frustration. "Prepare to fire from here." A cannon fire from this position would truly wreck the Zell fleet but the win wouldn’t be decicive… the rest of the fleet would have to slog it out in a messy fight and hindsight would correctly frame Alexander for shunning the escape fold plan of Mudds.

One more escort emerged late from the spikes…. It was the ship that had a malfunction in its exceed engine and it was barreling through the spikes using a giant spatial distortion cone running at a power level that would sap the craft of any power in minutes. Spikes bounced in every direction and then the cone unraveled likely due to its generation mechanisms being overused. The last free escort’s reaction control system puffed and wined aligning the ship perfectly to super boost right into the tractor confinement beam holding the red destiny. And that bisection cancelled the second half of the beam… and the hero escort was pulled into the mouth of the Zell tractor ship never to be seen again.

the Red Destiny was once again free and motion and maneuvering authority was totally restored. The tractor beam was the last major obstacle and Alexander and Fae knew it. Now simply to cast aside a few pebbles and wreck the Zell for good.

Fae pushed the booster to beyond max… she was now required to vent energy from the Tzo matrix at all times to keep it stable and might as well turn that excess into propulsion…. A large battle ship moved to hinder The Red Destiny but with no effort Fae activated the Razon shields and split the thing in two. Many shocked Zell floated in between the cleft portion and applauded before the entire thing exploded.

Then… there was the flagship…. The Red Destiny whizzed by twisting and turning around every energy blast that it sprayed in desperate panic.

On passing the side of the flagship the red destiny cut her engines and made a tight 180 turn as if being yanked by a gravimechtron…. She drifted another 1000m as she slowed and aimed the main cannon directly at the aft portion of her prey.

“Prepare cannon” Alexander commanded. Many activities on the ship stopped as many others came to life…. The throat of the ship housed the main cannon and its smooth exterior paneling slid back to reveal complicated mechanisms. 12 giant super capacitors 6 on each side began to protrude from the ship… they seemed to already be absorbing energy. Below the bridge a hatch dropped open and the tip of a barrel extended. At the same time the aft portion main booster widened in a configuration that favored flow over agility. In general the sleek look of the ship gave way to ugly vents hatches and sliding panels exposing technology that looked as if it was about to burst.

Energy started to coalesce in front of the barrel… and in a moment a small sphere of power began to grow.

The core was quite loud now and the red Destiny shook as if powerful energy could not be contained anymore. All the readings in the bridge seemed to be glowing brighter than ever. The energy sphere in front of the ship was about a meter in diameter and growing rapidly. It was bright to the point that unprotected eyes would be blinded. Fae, continued to dodge bolt fire, loose spikes and Zell marines.

"Five Seconds until loss of containment," Fae reported.

Alexander pressed a button on his comm link signaling the entire fleet. "All main cannons link to my trigger! Maximum Power, Wide Angle"

The energy sphere was quite large and volatile at this point, about 10 meters in diameter. Alexander looked on the Tzo crystal display as the crystal mass began to consume itself rapidly.

A large red button emerged out of a compartment hiding inAlexander's right arm chair.

"One Second until--", Fae Began to report.

Alexander Interrupted: "FIRE!", he brought down his right fist like a hammer hit the red button with great force.

From the power sphere a parabola of anti-matter energy began to flow. The power of it was something unseen by human kind or Zell ever before. The energy ripped through the undefended flank of the Zell ships like they were paper.

From the other side of the battle plane, the Ronin fleet dropped its sheilds and fired a simultaneous blast pointing directly toward the Red Destiny. Where the two blasts met the Zell ships were crushed to nothing more than atoms. The parabola emanating from the Red Destiny was quite a bit stronger. Energy seemed to spill and surround the Ronin fleet, but the calculations were sound and the Ronin fleet suffered no friendly fire.

As the blast continued the energy sphere in front of the Red Destiny decreased in size. The powerful flow of energy began to lessen. It diminished even more as the energy sphere shrank. The Parabola began to softly collapse to a narrow beam of high intensity light, the beam decayed rapidly the moment after it appeared and for a split second the brightest light ever witnessed by humans or zell looked like the narrow beam of light that a cheap flashlight produces. And then it was gone.

Where there was a Zell fleet a moment ago, nothing but a giant ball of hot plasma remained.

A NAP BETWEEN CHAOS

Less sailed down a hall in a legitimate panic.

“Critter. begin. Mode: Stealth. (intrution) Detect -> Report @ here. Execute.” Less commanded his most loyal bot in bit speak. ‘Hide here and report any intruders coming my way.’

Critter, a small monkey bot that clung to lester’s back lept from his perch to the wall and then scurried up to the ceiling behind and electronic junction box.

Less made a hard left turn skipping off course to preserve his momentum. He ambled down the hallway of escape pods at speed that defied his unathletic build.

Less stopped at the second to last pod entry and pressed a button on the left shoulder harness of his Tactical Engineering trousers for an intravenous boost of oxygen laced blood.

He meditated for a moment as if his next move was life and death. He stared at a bright red button that he merely needed to smash and the pod would open like a flower for him… but that would cause him a new problem. For the button was single use… it was glass and would shatter after being smashed and that meant it would leave evidence. So he focused on his cybernetic implants in an effort to hack the door open.

Why was evidence important? Because less wasn’t trying to escape from danger… he was trying to escape from work. Really boring work.

After Alexander’s stunning victory the field engineers would be celebrated and celebrating and that meant cleanup tasks (recovering bots, restocking ammo, repairing equipment and telemetry review) would fall to the Supporties .

Bump! The door slammed open–the pod accepted him and then in a rush the door shut and the “pride” of the Tactical Engineering Corp lay ensconced in the pods tranquil oblivion. Completely safe from the search of his better who would have him review telemetry for the rest of the day.

Less blipped into his fantasy world in quiet bliss right as the world around him descended back to hell.

PART 3: EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL

SLEEP DISTURBANCE

One hour after the annihilation of the Zell, the Red Destiny drifted peacefully. Its main power source was literally fused into a molten mess, it could no longer defend or attack; It could barely move. Auxiliary power supplied life support and minimal communication.

In the darkened bridge Alexander napped with his captain's seat fully reclined (another specialty of the Red Destiny -- no other captain's seat in the fleet could recline.) Fae interacted with her capsule in silence.

Their recent handiwork on the Zell fleet filled the entire vid screen. The plasma field had cooled to a mass of super hot gas forming an opaque barrier between The Red Destiny and the Flotilla and Alliance Fleet.

Suddenly squawk on the comm channels signaled a much anticipated message for Alexander, “Slyther! Have you found him!?”

“Admiral Mudd cannot be found… most likely blown into space. We continue to search but there is a lot of debris after the battle.”

“And Pete”

“Yes! Pete is alive and recovering. He was found unconscious but will be made completely well our medics predict”

Alexander reclined back in his chair, “What a relief.” He terminated the comm with Slyther.

A small detachment of the Ronin fleet had advanced beyond the Red Destiny pursuing the remnants of the Zell fleet. Even though the principal elements of the Zell fleet been annihilated their rear guard, several reserve formations and support ships that lurked behind the flagship were unharmed by the Red Destiny's blast. Victory for the Human fleet was assured, however, the Zell did not stop fighting and the Ronin fleet adopted cautious tactics in order to minimize casualties. The Ronin Fleet faced another couple of hours of tedious slaughtering before the battle could end.

A communication came over the vid screen. "Commander, we anticipate the mop up to last about two more hours. Shall I have your ship towed back to the front line?"

"Negative. Commit all resources to the mop up we don’t want to endanger the men. Retrieve us upon your victorious return.", Alexander didn't even open his eyes."

"Aye Aye sir! And Great work!"

Alexander's only response was a smile.

“Why for you won’t take a tow? Men not in danger!", Fae asked. Lies completely confused her. Lies from Alexander fascinated her and Alexander was accustomed to being questioned by Fae after he emitted the smallest of white lies. He always took the time to explain to Fae in as much detail as she wanted.

"No. I just want to sleep. They can handle the rest."

Just then an unsettling thing happened. A “red light” – or at least that is how best it could be described– passed through The Red Destiny and every other ship in the fleet. Alexander and Fae could “Feel” the light cross them like some type of energy phasing by. The light wasn’t really red or a light but sort of a subtraction of light and yet also not a shadow. It was quite simply impossible to explain and all who felt it shuttered. But it seemed to have no effect so life quickly went on.

Alexander had followed up his victory with the usual transmission of a prepared message and a speech to the entire human race. Just as his fleet would not relent against a broken enemy, Alexander sought to crush every last remnant of his political opposition.

"I apologize for being so insistent. I will never desire to oppose the will of the people. But the polling my rivals conducted was a fraud and we still do not know the true wants of the people."

"You have witnessed the greatest military victory since humans first engaged in astro battle. This victory was brought because of you, the people, the ones who have endured thirty years of Zell torment, the only ones left."

"What if I told you our nightmare could be over tomorrow? That is right. We can defeat the Zell. For just as humans regard the three remaining habitat spheres as the future of the human race; The Zell have only three planetary hatcheries that is their only future. Years of scouting and analysis have revealed this to us."

"Presently we sit at a point equidistant from all three hatcheries. We know the rivalries between Zell hatcheries run deep; deeper than their rivalry with humans. The Zell, as predictable as ever, have abandoned their protective posts and rushed to destroy the humans, to claim the glory of victory for their hatchery."

"In another twenty hours the Zell fleets will reach a point of no return where they will not be able to turn back and defend their hatcheries if they are attacked. Their precious hatcheries will be virtually undefended."

"For the rest of the plan, I ask you to have faith in me. Trust in me as human-kind's humble protector for the moment. I pledge to deliver victory. I pledge to free you from the Zell Nightmare we have experienced for the last eight years. I pledge to bring a new age where human kind will once again flourish."

He paused for a while.

"My opponents, the Representatives I speak of, put a question to you earlier today. They asked in effect 'Do you believe humanity would be better served under our stewardship?' They claim you have said yes. But they are deceivers and the polling results are merely their latest concoction, the last lie they will ever tell. Whatever the results they have asked the wrong question. I put the question to you: 'Do you choose Eternal Retreat or Eternal Victory?' I put this question to you this once, and will abide forever by your decision, as we will never have an opportunity again. We will have a vote in one hour. Choose the fate of humanity wisely."

After he ended the transmission Fae asked, "Why polls so false?"

"I don't know. It's how politics are done, I guess.", Alexander answered. "Slyther will falsify the results of this vote if the legitimate results do not fall in my favor.", He then leaned back and started his nap.

The poll results started to flow in an hour into his nap.

"95% approval," Fae commented.

Alexander opened one eye to look at the polling results on his vid screen, "Savor the adoration of the people today. Tomorrow we will start in our new roles of being the greatest mass murders in human history." He went back to sleep.

A short time passed and Fae became interested in some new instrument readings… She summoned multiple screens and started reviewing sensor logs. The ambient sound in the bridge changed to the beeps and audio interactions of Faes computer interface.

The change in ambient sound alerted Alexander. He opened the same one eye... as if that eye was less asleep than the other and he observed Fae for a moment. He closed his eye and hoped Fae would sort out the matter without needing his involvement.

But Fae kept summoning screens and scrubbing through log data and it began to bother Alexander.

"What is it, Fae?", his eyes were still closed.

"Anomolous phenomenon."

"Good", Alexander thought. Unexplained phenomenon was not his bag. He allowed himself to start a descent into a deeper sleep.

Five minutes passed and Fae's confusion grew.

"Alexander?"

"Yes, Fae?" Alexander responded grogily.

"There is something in the cloud."

"Debris?"

"No. ship. A Zell one."

Alexander sprung to a sitting position.

"Did it enter after the blast?", he asked.

"No contrail."

"Is it derelict?", Alexander hoped

"No. Energy signature, accelerating and intentional maneuvering."

“Maneuvering where?”

“To Us.”

"What kind of ship is it?"

Fae ran some analysis for a few seconds and had an answer, "Dreadnought."

"The Dreadnaught? The same flagship?"

"No.", Fae Reported, "It will get closer we can scan it…."

A couple of uncomfortable minutes passed. Alexander abandoned any hope of returning to his nap and inclined his captain's seat. They waited in silence, there was no point in taking action until they understood what they were dealing with.

Five kilometers from the Red Destiny the gas cloud seemed to cough up the mystery object. A large Zell ship emerged trailing swirls of gas that seemed reluctant to release its guest.

"It's the flagship.", Fae updated

"How? How could it have survived!? It doesn't have a scratch!"

"Negative. Not the flagship we blasted. It is THE Zell Flagship. The Eight Ball."

Zell battleships were not named by the Zell, but particularly scary or important Zell ships would earn a title among the humans. "The Eight Ball" was the super flagship of the entire Zell race. It superseded control of all three hatcheries and allowed the entire Zell race to act as one species. No fleet had ever seen The Eight Ball in person and survived.

"Are there any more?" Alexander Asked

“No”

"Where is its fleet?", He asked to himself.

"Summon the Ronin fleet. Abandon the mop up. We have to destroy this ship."

The Eight Ball drifted forward and was heading directly for The Red Destiny.

"We are completely defenceless?"Alexander asked.

"Besides small arms, we have no defence"

"Can we escape?"

"We have enough power for maneuvering thrusters. We can produce enough velocity to get out of the path of the Flagship, but if it steers towards us, we cannot escape it.",

"Contact my cavalry. Command them to leave the Ronin fleet and come to our position at maximum speed... And Remember this Fae, always consent to a tow when it is offered. Always."

"I will remember not to lie."

Alexander nervously observed his tactical display watching The Eight Ball and his cavalry approach The Red Destiny. There was no way the Calvary could arrive in time.

At one-kilometer The Eight Ball came to a complete stop and did nothing.

"No Fleet, No Shields, No attack... what's their game?", Alexander pondered aloud. "I sense a trap. The Eight Ball would be a prize of a victory for our side without question. It's being dangled in front of me just as I dangled the Red Destiny in front of the Zell. And If I was Zell, surely I would abandon my ship and attack. But a trap is not needed. We are the defenceless ones. We are completely outmatched at the moment and our rescue cannot arrive in time to spare us if they attack now. So what is their game?"

"Alexander!", Fae said excitedly. Her excitement was the clearest indication that she had discovered something very bad she summoned a large situational map of the entire theatre.

And then Reason and Reksep broke in on the comms: “We are surrounded.”

“The Red Destiny?”

“No, The entire Human Fleet is surrounded”

There were few times in his life that Alexander was stunned into complete inaction. This was a moment. Absolute horror swept through his body.

His inaction began to thaw and he started the process of discovery that would bring about victory, a process he had gone through many times but never inside what seemed such an impossible situation.

Alexander: "Estimated size of the Fleet?"

Reksep: "Uncountable. “They surround us from every angle in a spheroidal formation.”

Alexander experienced a second bout of petrification after Fae brought up a tactical view of the Zell fleets closing envelopment of the only remaining humans in the universe.

Again he struggled to find the right questions to get the victory discovery process started. He decided to start with 'How.'

Alexander: "How could they have flanked us like this? Do you think they can now cloak?"

Reason: "The vessels appear to be the same that were closing in on us before, the ones that had an arrival estimate of twenty to fourty-eight hours. In an instant they have advanced to within one-half hour before they close."

Alexander: "Some kind of light distortion, they tricked our sensors to think they were far away?"

"Impossible." Fae said confidently.

Alexander thought for a moment. "No! Fold technology!?"

Alexander: “Fold Tech?”

Reksep: "I do not detect evidence of a fold, but it cannot rule it out."

Alexander: “Well, thanks… no way not knowing that isn’t going to lead to a strategic blunder…”

Reksep: "Fold systems consume massive amounts of energy. Typically a fleet is bunched together and transferred in one giant fold bubble. To surround us in an instant at trillions of positions far apart from each other would require a trillion fold systems and untold amounts of energy. Am I right?"

Reason: "You are correct."

Alexander: "Are the Zell known to possess that much power?"

Reksep: "From our Analysis the Zell do not have enough energy to make a single fold."

Alexander: "Is there any evidence of the Eight Ball folding into the gas cloud?"

Reason: "Impossible. We would know if it was a fold. We registered energy from an unclassified phenomenon which was probably responsible for the appearance of The Eight Ball, but we have no better explanation of its sudden appearance other than 'it just appeared'."

Alexander: “Well that’s one thing. At least we know they can’t fold.”

Reason: “Uhm, commander…. Its much worse… the Zell have a technology that we don’t understand that is far more dangerous than the fold system… they or some ally.”

Alexander thought to himself for a moment. The 'how's' were getting him nowhere. He changed his discovery tactics.

Alexander: "The Eight Ball. If we decapitate the flagship it will throw the enemy into disarray. Surely everything is being orchestrated from the Eight Ball... And the conditions to fight our final attack are met, the entire Zell fleet is here and the hatcheries are left unprotected. How long will it take to jump the fold system?"

"One Half Hour," Fae Replied.

"Of course... initiate the fold systems, Fae. Order the fleet to surround the habitat spheres in their assigned positions in preparation for all three folds. Command our best attack forces, including the Calvary, to meet our position for a blitzreege attack on the Eight Ball. As soon as our attack commences reserve one cavalry ship to tow us to the Habitat-Sphere.", His confidence was only half restored, many unknowns confronted his plan.

"The Eight Ball is creating a spheroidal shield. Two kilometers in diameter. We are surrounded in it."

"More surprises from the Zell," He meditated for a moment. "Cancel the attack on the Eight Ball. Summon a squadron of stealth ships to linger near our position and wait to tow us--maximum cloak. Prepare timed and event driven messages to send to all the players involved in the attack on the hatcheries. Do not avail them to the entire plan at once, they won't have the stomach for it.", He paused, "I will board the Eight Ball and disable her shields."

Fae's Androsynth face showed a rarely seen surprise. She stood and faced Alexander.

He began prepping his armor for battle. "I don't really need the cape, but it makes me feel more powerful", he said to himself.

"We are equipped with twelve warbots. Prep all for battle, Six will accompany me and Six will stay to protect you and the Red Destiny. Have my sword, shields and spear readied. Also prep a stealthy escape pod. We will launch in a single line behind the escape pod, pointing towards The Eight Ball. Hopefully the stealthy pod will make our arrival a surprise.", He continued to speak with half confidence.

Fae initiated all of Alexander's order with her mental connection to the Red Destiny. Service bots began to scurry about the ship grabbing supplies, swords and taking warbots out of tight storage areas. Fae looked on at Alexander, her eyebrows showed the slightest tension.

Alexander donned his helmet and began to descend a starboard side ladder that led to the forward escape hatch.

He stopped right where his chest eclipsed the floor and looked at Fae.

"Have a stealth pod ready for yourself as well. At the first sign of trouble, eject in the pod and use the warbots as a distraction. Wait for the all clear sign and then use your blades to requisition a tow.",

He looked at her face. Fae's eyes were swollen. The number of tears shed by Androsynth throughout history could not fill a thimble. Alexander recognized it for the important moment that it was. He hustled back up the latter, removed his helmet and approached Fae. She looked down. She was very slightly trembling.

"I go with you. I am stronger.", Fae said.

His gentle tone contrasted the many powerful heart stopping speeches he had given that day. "Fae, My best friend, as comrades we have accomplished much together and I do not believe our collaboration is meant to end today. Still I admit--this fight has me worried. But in every impossible situation an opportunity waits to be discovered. Just as our defeat to Mudd seemed imminent, we discovered our salvation waiting to be plucked and turn our despair to victory -- That situation seems like child's play right now, like it was a lesson we learned in another age, an obstacle we could counter without effort now."

"The Eight Ball has issued a challenge. It's me they want. If I don't go they will attack The Red Destiny and both of us will be lost for sure. I have to go and go alone--it's our best chance to bring about a victory."

"I ask you to stay with the Red Destiny and preserve your life no matter what happens. I ask you to abstain from observing this fight save for monitoring my vital signs as anything more will tempt you into rash action. I ask you to complete our fight for the human race till the very end -- it will not be much longer now. I ask you to wait for the opportunity to present itself-- I cannot tell you what it will be as I don't know myself-- but you will know it when you encounter it. If you do those things for me I am sure to return to your side.", he gently cupped her cheek with his hand.

A moment passed. Alexander disengaged Fae, donned his helmet again and ambled down the latter in silence.

He opened the hatch and immediately was tractored out of the ship falling down, down, down to the evil Zell ship below.

SPONTANEOUS EJECTION

Lester lay nestled in a multi layer onion of bliss. His body lay in bliss in the interior of a cozy escape pod and his mind in deeper bliss deep within the dreamworld he enjoyed by virtue of his cybernetic implants… less drifted… Bliss and stillness… and then MOTION!?

Less blipped out of his dreamworld.The escape pod was moving and rapidly too. At the moment it was winding through the conveyance headed to the nearest exterior facing ejection tube on the flotilla. Less knew that was the process of ejection when the Vulkan’s Pride was moored with the Flotilla.

What was going on?

Less reconnected to the feeds and noticed a flurry of chaotic alarms. The Zell was upon us? Upon the Flotilla? How? They were days away when he was last connected!

Tactical Engineers had a technical term for situations like this: “Bad”

Worse, the Zell had breached the perimeter and were presently tearing through the Flotilla defence detail like ants assailing a clutch of grasshoppers. Worse than worse, Less detected that escape pods were being picked off by Zell snippers… reaching the ejection tube meant certain death!

Standard issue uniform for a Tactical Engineer was no fashion statement
consisting of some sort of unisuit covered by unique overalls and sometimes a
jacket, but these were no mere garments. For every thread covering Lester's
nakedness had been engineered ad nauseum by Tactical Engineers of christmas
past and that meant that Less was well equipped by virtue of showing up for
work. Making Lester's jeopardy less dire to him than what a layman observer
would surmise.

Equipped in Lester's loadout was the ability to survive in space for some hours,
intravenous flow of glucose, proteins and oxygenation, 3 automated medical
bots each the size of a mouse that could crawl anywhere over and in his body
to apply first aid if needed and attachments for customizations: weapons and
gizmos to build things, fix things, defensive measures and minor weapons if he
needed to lay out a little hurt on some enemies.

Choice of weapon was optional and for Lester he favored explosive bomblets: 8 tiny
balls sized 3 centimeters each they sat snug in a hard covered and tightly
attached fanny pack that stored and customized each little bomb. The
bomblets were typically thrown -- like all bombs -- at something he didn't want
to exist anymore, yet they were nothing like dumb bombs. They had the ability
to float for a while, holme in on a target with a limited ability to arc their
trajectory and the shape and type of explosion could be modified for a variety
of deadly effects.

Less decided the escape pod had to go. He reached to the small of his back
and said "barrier destruction. directed cone. sensitive proximity." with that he
ordered up a modified bomblet that would constrict its detonation into a
confined beam of spall in order to tear through a barrier warning the system of
'sensitive proximity' meaning there was something on the non-business end of
the explosion that he didn't want harmed (namely himself)

His bomb kit buzzed and vibrated for a moment as it customized his ammo
then spit out exactly what he ordered into his waiting hand.

Less tossed the bomblet which stuck to the opposite wall of the escape pod. He activated a weak force field on his belt and prepared for impact.

Boom! A 50 centimeter hole appeared across the way.

The escape pod began to tumble and bounce off the sides of the conveyance. Lester remained
Fixed to his resting place by virtue of a cable attachment.

Pieces of the escape pod began to fling off and the inside began to crater.
Lester senses it was time for part 2 of his tactic to escape the escape pod and
he again activated his weak spherical force field rolling the dial to cause it to
rapidly expand then contract. His personal forcefield pushed against the inner walls of the
Pod causing metal fatigue and after a moment and due to the pods compromised situation the entire envelope burst into debris.

Lester curled into a ball and contracted his forcefield as small as possible as bits in pieces of his former hiding place whizzed over and around his invisible sphere of protection.

Well... now he would no longer be injected into space. That part was good. But
Lester himself was still bumbling and tumbling through the conveyance with
shards of pod decking everything around him.... This too could become quite
Fatal.

Now it was time for a new tool of the Tactical Engineer to save our Less. It was
THE tool of every tactical engineer: The Wrench. Named after an ancient
engineering implement for tightening bolts it shared a similar shape but lacked
that vestigial function. The Tactical Engineer's wrench was a mobile device for
commanding and controlling bots.... the workforce and warmechanism of all
Tactical Engineers.

Less unholstered his wrench, held it at arms length and spoke the magic
summoning words "WarBots mobilize!" The three bots in Lester's retinue
sparked online in an instant."Bots! Begin rescue Less. Track location. Plan bypass barrier: 'conveyance tube'execute." In bitspeak Lester commanded all three to track him down and join
him in the tube....

Once with his companions he would have ample strength to overcome this obstacle.

Less' suit equipped with a simple reaction control system enabled him to orient
away from his direction of travel. He shot a grappling hook from his left arm port
and very elastically slowed to a stop after the mechanisms end effector found
Purchase.

Less yanked a series of cables from various hiding spots on his uniform,
attached them to the wall and ratched his body as tightly as he could to the
inner wall of the conveyance as miscellaneous materials sped past him in the
conveyance sometimes missing him by mere centimeters.

"Less! Where the hell are you!?" A familiar voice chimed over the comms.
"Ed Greely" Less said acidically. He stifled his instinct to ignore Ed and instead
pinged his location.

"We're close! Hang on, bud!" a short burst of static then, "Bodgie, think of
something!" Less rolled his eyes.

A few moments later, "We got you in the system.... redirecting you to our
location" Bodgie said proudly. ... via hacking Bodgie presumably had made the
conveyance see Lester as a person instead of escape pod debris and
redirected Less's destination to ... well... wherever they were. Less had planned
to blow up the tube and get his warbots to extract him. Bodgie’s plan was
better. Lester puffed and issued a cancel command negating "barrier breach"
Directive.

"Rodger." Lester confirmed and detached his bindings. His body now under
the control of the knowing conveyance whisking him to rendezvous with Ed, the
cadets and his warbot companions.

UNHAPPY REUNION

Lester exited the conveyance at higher speed than usual. In times of crisis the
The conveyance operation was faster and less gentle. He tumbled to the feet of the cadets and recovered his dignity. Immediately after Critter joined them and took his perch clinging to Lester’s shirt.

"Less"," Mr Mann" "Professor" Each cadet excitedly greeted LEss in their own
way. Very nice of them especially the one who called him "Professor" since
Less was nothing of the sort. But their punctuated greetings betrayed the
motivation for rescuing Lester... they were without an Ed Greely and probably in
some heap of trouble.

"Zell!" Bodgie got right to the topic.

"We were attacked by Zell!" Jet added to the conversation. "They ambushed
us and chased us here."

“And it called us a bad name!” added Jett.

"And it hit me in my eye!", Grey claimed. He pointed to his right
eye... which looked fine.

"We're cornered. We have no bots. He's coming round the corner:", Bodgie
gave the important information to Less in a panic.

"Right here in my eye! it hurts!", Grey continued.

A Zell on the Flotilla would have to be dealt with. Less raised his wrench and
again commanded his bots: "continue homing on me. Priority 8"

"8! we need 10! they will be here any minute" Jet questioned.
But Less would not have his superior experience questioned, "priority 9 they
would get to me ignoring the safety of any human but myself and priority 10
they would do so ignoring their own safety potentially causing them to arrive
too damaged to protect us.

" What weapons do you guys have in your arsenal? Dumb looks were returned.

Then Bodgie: "Um... we were sorta paired with Mr. Greely because of an incident involving some weapons at the academy and so then... well... we don't really have any"

“Incident?”

“Well…. We were sorta… shooting them at each other on low power in a dare contest… so they gave us Ed.”

Grey: "My eye is still hurting!" .

“Edward the savior”.... Less realized he hadn't been rescued so much as summoned to a
Deathtrap.

"We still have assets, I ran high school track", Jet said. He looked too pudgy to ascend a staircase.

"Uh, okay, you don't need to tell me your other assets.--” He heard a sound and transformed his wrench into pistol mode.

“A pistol! “ Exclaimed Jett.

“Don’t get too excited… Tactical Engineering pistols are for cutting materials I’d be lucky if I could shoot this thing in the eye to blind him”

“Yeah! The Eye! Shoot him in the eye!” said Grey…

Something was approaching from the corner.... it slowly stalked it's prey as if to
intimidate the darling little cadets. Breathing and deliberate clinks of claws
walking across the metal floor grew in loudness and terror... And the creature
seemed to have asma or something too as its breath was wheasy and evil.

Get behind me. Maybe I can hold them off before my warbots arrive" calmed Lester.

Grey covered his face in fear.

Then, a tiny creature no more than 30 centimeters eclipsed the hallway… a Zell for sure.

Lester completely dropped his guard. “Do you guys know ANYTHING? That is a Zell boss….”

“Human Scum… You face Vraylar the Zell… Now. Die as you deserve too!”

“Such words!” shouted Jett.

But Lester was done. “Sic” he said to Critter and critter jumped and attacked the tiny Zell… the two were about the same size and they tumbled with Crittter giving most of the beatings

“Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!” screamed the little Zell.

“A Zell boss is harmless without troops to command. He probably got over excited by how cowardly you acted and couldn’t help chasing you down himself.”

Critter disengaged and Vraylar made a hasty retreat. Lester took his wrench pistol and gave the wretched Zell a little zap in the fanny for good measure… “ACK!” he said.

“Bodgie If we live through this please remind me to petition the academy to reinstate your weapon permits so you can use them to shoot each other at the earliest convenience”

WARBOTS MOBILIZE

Down the hall we will rendezvous with my Warbots. Be careful.

Each Tactical Engineer maintained a retinue of bots. And this arrangement
greatly improved the effectiveness of both engineer and bot. For many bots
were not mindless automatons but they shared very unique personality
traits. As a matter of fact it was learned ages ago yet never known why that
a bot's personality core could not be transferred or copied.

Bots without unique personality cores were called robos and bots always
seemed to outperform robos in Astro Battle. It was assumed that just like in
humans a diversity of thought and action made tactics more creative and
harder to predict and counter.

"Uhm, sir. Aren't your warbots broken?" Bodgie asked with hesitation.

And what Bodgie said about broken bots was partially true. There was nothing
wrong with Lester's bot chassis due to regular maintenance, their personalities
were however--different. As a matter of fact all three of Lester's bots had been
in the retinue of other Tactical Engineers before and all three had been slated
for personality core removal for a variety of defects.

Lester rescued each of them and treated them like beloved family vs the
typical relationship where Tactical Engineers treated their bots like Eskimos
of ancient used to treat utilitarian sled dogs that they might get hungry and
have to eat one day.

His other two Warbots were full-sized and formidable compared to the miniature
Critter. Critter was really not a warbot at all but a special type of bot that
moved through tight spaces in machinery to repair wires and equipment. He
was particularly fast at wiring ships using his tail to doll out cable. Beyond
that he was very fast, agile a climber and benefited from more than a few
modifications from Lester himself.

But why would someone , anyone want loyal critter's personality bot cast in the
fire. Bot personalities are a lot like humans. They have feelings, wants and
desires. Their ultimate purpose in life is to expect their last bits in the service
of their human master and Critter was the most exemplary bot of all these
virtues. Bots also experience trauma that can change their personality core
forever. It was not known to Less what happened to Critter.... But he was mute
from the day he entered Lester's service. Less protected him. And what use is
a mute bot? You'll see.

The two others came as a pair. Nand and Xor. They were powerful but argued
frequently. Nand was female and prone to making critiques about any plan... She was slated for the crucible not because of incompetence but because Tactical Engineers were tired of having a bot rain on their parade when any and every plan was being wrought.

And Xor was the opposite. He seemed to have no common sense and no
awareness of danger. Lester fixed both of these capable bots without
unscrewing a single exterior panel. He just put them together and let Xor do
annoying things so Nand spend her extra energy criticizing him and keeping
him in line leaving little room for editorial on how her Tactical Engineering was
doing.

It was probably the most amazing team in history that also no one respected
even a lick. And remember this amazing but awful team was down to one tiny
bot so at the moment this diacotomy of skill was blunted in every way.
"The junction!" Bodgie saw the destination and all hover boots terminated as
their wearers slid to a safe halt. "Where's Mr Greely?"

"Found him! Ed was standing listless in the middle. " Jet ran to his advisor with
great excitement. "

No wait! Less yelled!,

But his warning did nothing. The moment Jet reached his destination Edward
Disappeared .... a hologram... and he didn't disappear into just anything. He was now a
giant Zell brute standing on his hind legs. The Brute swept Jet up and bit his
head off dropping the body to die

"Jet! Bodgie and Gray cowarded behind Less.

The Brute fell forward and braced impact with his front arms.... he was now on
all fours--the preferred walking style for a Zell and atop his mange an unwanted
thing lay perched-- it was the Zell boss that Critter had just roughed up. He
had gotten back before they did. Vraylar gave his brute mount the honor of throwing Jet's head in their direction, knocking the cadets down like bolling balls. Lester protected himself from the
minor projectile using a minor force field.

"Zell scum" Lester insulted. "What the hell do you want?"

More Zell galloped out of hiding and flanked Vraylar's mount hissing and
gnawing to intimidate their victims. In the next moment it would be total carnage and then the little team of Zell would move on to greater mayhems throughout the doomed flotilla.

Lester chucked a microbomb right at the Brute who countered by opening his
mouth and generating a spatial distortion geometry. Exactly what Lester wanted. The bomblet was a delivery mechanism for the shimmer nano-bots. On impact the bomblet exploded and the distortion spread a shroud in an instant. No one could see, but Less and Critter.

Without words critter executed part two. From his tail he fired a micro harpoon
that connected with the junction ceiling. With one, two, three hands he
grabbed the remaining living members of the party and then with surprising
strength hoisted all far above the chaos.

Dangling like gems on a gaudy shadalier all did their best to counter the
Natural oscillation of angular momentum on a string. Grey's panicked face was pushed right into
Critters head. Critters eyes blinked yellow and green (his best attempt at
soothing)

Below confused zell scraped and scratched, bit and blasted every ground
object they happened into (including each other) in a blind attempt to get to
their prey. If Vraylar hadn't been barking like mad to get them to stop they
might have eliminated each other with no further action needed by our heroes. And in fact two Zell rabble already lie dead.

Command is what makes a Zell boss dangerous. The boss is the anecdote to the
reckless spirit of the Zell... a reckless spirit that while terrible would make them
not much of a threat sans guidance.

The Zell, now totally blind made contact and crept together towards an arbitrary
direction and eventually were able to exit the cloud.... blocking the very hallway
that Lester needed.

"we need to get back into the shimmer or they might see us up here. Critter spun the party and detached each in turn making them land in different parts of the shimmer soup.

Now all but the Zell were shrouded in the shimmer and a true stalemate was in effect.

Less was beeping and popping on his wrench console then suddenly his entire
crew could 'see' through the shimmer albeit it was distorted like viewing
through the bottom of a swimming pool.

Gray saw an option for escape and took down the corridor, but was tripped by
Critter at Less's command.

On private comms Less: "Dumbass! once we leave the shimmer they will track us down and it will be head salad all over again."

Let’s get them with this, the Tactical Engineers standard side arm which was
equipped with a tiny concussive blast emitter--the most powerful and fearsome
weapon the world had ever seen if the year was 300 B.C and their enemies
were dodo birds... The standard issue embedded blaster could cut things,
vaporize barriers and ambush sleeping prey but probably couldn't make a Zell's
eye tear up if they shot it at maximum power at point blank range. still they
had utility.

He checked on the status of the warbots.... they were wading through a rabble
of Zell themselves and would be further delayed.

Ed wasn't so far off.... He generated a hologram of Bodgie and gave it his side
arm. The reset was easy.... the 3 survivors ambled off into a safe corner
activated the program and holo Bodgie began firing his weapon in all directions
, shouting "Die! You unworthy foe" Zell did not like being called unworthy.

From Lester's control he let the hologram get closer to the edge of the shimmer
and indeed he lowered the shimmers opacity.

Finally holo Bodgie immerged from the threshold of the shimmer blasting his toy gun in
every direction "Unworthy! Unworthy!" The hologram said (for they had run out
of creative things to say)
This stupid move drove the lesser Zell mad. Four Rabbels leapt in the direction of the insults despite the boss Zell's protests that it was an obvious trap and upon contact a concussive explosion destroyed the four Zell in a satisfying way.

"Crimpers!" Fight us fair not with some bad mannered hologram. Vraylar protested.

"Lets stop this fighting and go see a movie or something", Lester channeled his
half brother Alexander sometimes when he taunted the Zell.

"Movie! What’s that? We can sit through your decimation... or our own.... nothing less."

The Zell loosed some encouragement into the shimmer in the form of bolts of
energy. One hit would send a cadet to heaven, but the shimmer made that
unlikely since it was a large space and the Zell simply couldn't see.
"If you put your face in you can see us better." Lester offered. This made his
cadets incredulous. But every Zell came from a long line of many things... one
of those being a complete dummy.

Again against the pleas of his Zell boss a Rabbel thrust his head into the
shimmer only to recoil suddenly with some type of pink goo permanently
hardened to his eyes and face.

"Perfect, Critter." Lester praised

Two more Zell leaned in to see how their comrade had been taken off the roster
list so to speak including the Brute. Their comrade writhed in agony and started to have some success ripping the pink glue from his facial carapace he cussed the human party. Gluing
eyes shut would have passed as a juvenile prank not a wartime advantage
had not Lester laced the glue with one of his concussion bombs. BOOOM
The afflicted and two closely witnessing his struggle lost their heads .... This battle was almost over. But it wasn't as dust settled

Four Zell laid slain, but the biggest one, the Brute that the Boss was riding,
his carapace was too strong. Lester's bombs had no effect on his powerful
Armor..

Ack Ack Ack Ack Ack! Suck It!” screem Vraylar.

Bodgie looked at Lester , perhaps hopeful for what the command "Suck it" might mean, but neither expected it to be fun.

It turned out to be an unconventional attack on the shimmer. As his Brute 'began
to deeply inhale or suck in the shimmer'.... the brute complied. In a matter of
minutes the shimmer was gone for in Astro Battle there is always measure and counter
measure . The moment a Tactical Engineer starts to rely on a solution is
the moment before he dies after his counter produces a totally unexpected
counter measure.

In moments the key to the party's stealth would be gone. Grey imagined some
fresh carnage that he didn't want to live through. and lost his mind.

“I surrender. I will surrender to you if you promise my safety and that of my
Comrades.”

"We don't have any safety for ‘people’ only scum.” Vraylar relished victory

Grey: "Ok.... thats fine."

The Zell boss liked this. "Young creature , They have us Zell wrong.... human
life is precious to us and saving one is the greatest aim. Come. Join us and
help us end this little war. We do not, however, save 'comrades, only first
movers brave enough to love us Zell gain our respect as they should so move
Fast."

Grey sprang for the opportunity, now afraid of losing his first mover advantage.

Lester shrieked "It's a TRAP. " But Grey wasn't having it. He ran right to the
clutches of Vraylar's brute

Grey: "I know but I can' t help it. There's something about having my head chopped
off that just makes me depressed all day. I'll do my best to negotiate your
Survival.

The Shimmer was almost gone at this point and a relieved Grey approached
Vraylar and his Brute.

"I Surrender. I have always had the greatest respect scary monsters and -- hey --- "

Grey's speech would have gone on but was halted when they started to manhandle him.
The Brute lifted Grey in the air and shoved Grey's head in his mouth.
"MY eyes!" was Greys last words before the Brutes beak crushed down and
Made him into a headless corpse.

Vraylar and the remaining two rabble laughed at their little trick.

Thinking fast Less released a simultaneous attack of four microbombs.... Customized from his kit each was bestowed with a special shaped charge in the service of decapitating that problematic Brute.

Explosion! The two rabbles were completely obliterated never to bother
anyone again and the Brute had been knocked on his back.

It was unclear how much damage he had taken and of course the boss was missing.

Lester now had 2 microbombs left. The first was infused with nano-shimmer if
a little more time was needed to beat a hasty retreat.... The second’s configuration wasn’t determined yet.

Bodgie and Less approached the carnage with great caution...
All seemed in order, potentially the boss was trapped under the girth of the
mighty brutes's body.

Lester stopped first and released a tiny camera bot to float all the way up and
capture a closeup of the carnage. But impatient Bodgie walked right up close
enough to see over the mighty beasts' belly and in a flash Bodgie was snatched
by the neck. Lester retreated back and exploded his second to last micro bomb,
creating a new shimmer zone temporarily throwing the Zells off his trail.

It was only a matter of time before the Zell suck machine did his environmental
duty again and Lester would be cornered.

"Hahahaha! chortled Vraylar. You humans are dumb" (no one argued this
statement)

Bodgie writhed and paniced.... he knew what was next for him.

Suddenly a high powered sniper blast ripped through the hall and hit the brute in the eye. No
Effect.

"That's my Bodgie, you can't have my Bodgie!" Greely chimed in.

Lester frantically checked the status of his warbots. They were close...
seconds away even, but that was meaningless. This conflict would end now. A
final ruse was needed and his quick mind had an unconventional idea
He pushed his final bomblett back into the kit and command strip anti armor,
propulsion leave bear. Add primitive contact fuse.... the little device went to
work customizing the explosive.

"Wait." Lester said to the beastie. Put him down. I am in charge. I will
negotiate surrender of the entire flotilla AND tell you where the Tzo Crystal is located on this ship "Tzo chrystal?" Ed Gasped

On private comms "So thats whee you were hiding, Ed.... don't ruin my bluff "

"This scrawny thing for you and a Tzo Crystal..... but we get to keep his head."

"No, he we all keep our heads I don't know about you but we humans like our
heads. Give us that and I take you to the real Tzo crystal... not a fake."

"Accepted" Vraylar chimed without even considering the deal.
The Brute dropped Bodgie who scurried away. And Lester slowly emerged from
the safety of the shimmer... quite, stoic, his mouth stressed but slammed shut
The brute grabbed Less and pulled him close to his gaping jaws... precisely a
move not in accordance with the agreement, but Less did not flinch.
"No words, human. No Matter. We Zell care nothing for a Zto crystal.... But that
is a very nice head I would like to have it ..."

Vraylar clicked the stirrups of his mount and the Zell brute opened wide to accept his next victim, but then Lester spit something out a tiny ball that projected through the air and into the
brutes open mouth, probably landing deep in his stomach.

At that time the Brute dropped Lester in a panic and started to shove both
hands down his throat in an effort to retrieve whatever it was lester had just
Spat.

Vraylar looked in confusion.

Then with rocket speed Critter jumped to the small of Lester's back. His tail
was firmly attached to something deep in the shimmer. In an instant the tail
contracted and Lester was brought to a safe 20 meters away Vraylar gave a look to Lester like
"That wasn't fair" but it was too late. The brute’s stomach quickly expanded and an unsatisfying boom rang out like a man holding in a sneeze... Black smoke flowed from the Brutes mouth over his green and confused eyes and then in the next second he fell to the floor dead. The Zell were no longer a threat.

"Vraylar sat stunned trying to process his spectacular defeat for a moment..
At this point Lester's standard issue pistol could have made quick work of the
little monster but in the spirit of all the fun the Zell were trying to have Less
decided the party shouldn't just end.

"What do we do with the boss? " asked Bodgie.... Lester gave a knowing look
and suggested "Drop kick him to the nearest moon"

Bodgie, now activated and deputized, put on a protective glove, easily chased
down and captured their rival and then gave him a rather excellent drop kick.

“Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!” SPLAT!

"How did you know I played football in college?.

But no answer from Less.... he was already onto the next task.

Edward dislodged himself from his hiding spot and stoically approached the
dead. Being a soldier and mentally fortified for death as he should have been
wasn't enough in this moment. Greely shed some tears and received more
comfort from Bodgie and Less who were more stoic about the loss of their
Comrades "At least they didn't get you, Bodgie!" Ed cried… I was waiting for the right shot… i couldn’t do it without you, Lester.

Then a large bang.... a service panel on an unseen hall fell off..... Ed and Bodgie
hugged each other in anticipation of more face eating, but Less knew only to
feer a blasted panel for a cut panel meant warbots.

"Repair weld access" Nand nagged Xor. "suspend repair caused scuttle" Xor
"You fixed every breach you created? Is that what took so long!? Don't
Answer."

Now that are chances of survival are up, I guess we ask the question what to
do, posited Ed.

"Escape." said Less, "WE have to escape the flotilla and make it to the fold"

CHAPTER PARTING COMPANY

"I got the codes to a small cloaking scout ship. Very small.... As a matter of fact we got kinda lucky when those Zell ate up Grey or he would have had to sit on my lap. Not so lucky for you and Bodgie."

"Bodgie is twice my size!" Argued Less

"He's gotta bad back.", Ed replied matter of factly.

"You're both smaller.... You could ride on each other's back." , offered Rodgi

Ed:"Yer still learning what it means to be a tactical engineer, Bodgie.... There are just a number of important technical reasons why you can't sit on my lap I don't have time to explain it to you."

Scout ships were used for reconnaissance or for moving small but high value assets through danger zones. The vehicle role was typically small with minimal weapons or defence--often NO weapons or defence-- and they fell into one of two categories of either being fast or stealthy with the most stealthy sporting fully operational cloaks.

"There are still issues," Less persisted. "most Cloaks are only effective at distances over 100 kilometers or so and they are even harder to maintain if the vessel is surrounded since cloaks are directional in nature.

So using a cloak to get to the fold bubble in time is going to mean getting picked off by point defence system right after we launch

Less: "If we fly away from the fold--where the Zell are less in force at the moment... we might go unnoticed, but then we'll be traveling in space for months before we reach the most primitive space faring civilization near us on account of the fact that we cannot engage faster than light. That means we need supplies for things like.... well we have to feed HIM (referring to Bodgie) And the idea of him getting bigger while sitting on my legs for some months is turning me off to your scout ship plan.

"We could amputate and preserve your legs and reattach them when we make planetfall", Bodgie suggested (his unorthodox approach was supported by modern technology)

"How bout we amputate your torso and leave both parts here instead" Lester quipped.

Ed: "No need to discuss any further... I got a plan that will work.... I'll have months to tell you all about it as we zoom to safety"

"Maybe I would like my ears to be amputated for the duration of the journey", Less said.

Less gave up and figured he could come up with a better solution once he saw the ship.... perhaps putting everyone in a makeshift coldsleep modification would make the trip bearable.

Then Less received an unwanted notification. Item IM-RY3 had still not left the vault. He stopped cold.

Ed:"Less, what's wrong!? We gotta get a move on..."

Less: "something has come up. I'm going to the vault"

Ed: "You gettin another one of your broken bots!? I swear you and those bots you better not be having sex with them"

Lester gave a disapproving face.... NONE of his bots were even humanoid and plus: "Gross"

Lester jumped into the nearest conveyance tube. His three bot companions followed.

Bodgie shrieked: "That's dangerous"

"You can't use conveyance, the Zell are already in there", Ed warned.

"I've programmed my bots to have sex with them.... there shouldn't be any trouble." Xor looked at Nand inquisitively... Critter's eyes flashed yellow (the color of confusion), "To the vault" BOOM! they were gone,.

"The vault will be the most heavily saturated by enemies on the flotilla.... he won't survive.", said Bodgie

"He'll be okay. We've come through many impossible scrapes together. Don't worry.... I know why you're worried and you shouldn't. He'll survive and train those bots of his to have sex with YOU too someday Bodgie.

"Too many ‘sex’ jokes", said Bodgie

“Hahah! Just joking…. Hey! Less forgot his pistol… Well, I guess you learned your lesson” Ed handed the pistol over to Bodgie.

CHAPTER TO THE VAULT

Organics traveled through the conveyance by the use of some sort of vehicle, but they were in short supply. Instead Lester hacked the system to think he was a vehicle and he used his Tactical Engineering 'cacoon' a spherical shield which was weak but covered him from all directions and allowed him to bounce off walls from all directions. Another advantage to the cocoon was that it canceled outside inertia... in other words as the little globe was tumbling, bumping, flipping and spinning Lester didn't feel any of it ... to him he was sitting in a small but quiet office working on his next plan.

Of course the cocoon was weak as for mentioned and in battle served little more protection than deflection of debris and the lowest level weapons.

Larger debris like that crashing through the conveyance tubes at the time could easily give Lester a bad day and that's where Nand and Xor came in.

"Boom!" Xor used his blaster to annihilate an incoming piece of debris then Nand zapped individual shards with her point defence beams

While all tumbled through the windy tubes of the conveyance Nand & Xor argued in bitspeak.

Nand: "Xor is shorted (an idiot)."

Xor: "more" ( more information please)

Nand: "...Blaster create spall... Master in danger. ergo: Xor is shorted."

Xor: "Not. (you're wrong) Nand assist with PDL. Master safe. ergo: Not "

Nand: "Rejected. Tactical pivot:. spacial distortion cone. Supposition: No danger to Master."

Xor: "Rejected. 'Suppasitions are superstitions' say master. “

Nand: Rejected. Supersitions are not suppasitions therefore nonequivilancy.

Xor: "Nand buffer overflows (talks too much). Sollusion Nand >> /dev/null (this was an ancient command expression meaning all future communication would be sent to null/garbage.... a joke from Xor) -- alternative solution: Nand use weld and weld off own head.

As they approached the vault antechamber the conveyance exit hatch opened and critter harpooned a structural pillar and began winding Less into the chamber.

This was a waiting room for people to petition and wait for vault items that had some kind of administrative lock on them and weren't allowed to travel by conveyance summons.

BATTLE ARENA 8BALL

Alexander woke in darkness. He carefully stood and gathered his brains. He diagnosed his body and felt no injury. His armor was on and functional… his weapons and warbots companions were nearby.

The light improved and he realized he was on the surface of a giant floor… a giant giant cavernous part of the ship… with viewing stands. It was a battle arena!

The light improved more and both he and the Zell could see each other… the Zell let out a giant howls for their human hero.

And on the other side of the Arena a Zell brute entered through a giant door.

Alexander: “Summon Spear” his spear lept off the ground and into his hand. The Brute began to charge towards him. Alexander pointed his spear at the Brute and said “seek & boost” flame emitted from the back of the spear and it perforated the charging Brute right through. The spear lodged in the arena wall and the Brute fell over dead.

The violence was well received by the Zell peanut gallery!

Alexander sought an opportunity to talk to his hosts, but playtime wasn’t over he supposed and when it comes to the Zell playtime is slaytime.

An overzealous Zell jumped from the elite section into the arena–probably out of turn. He was slightly larger than the average Zell warrior. He was clad in an armor that merely protected his most vulnerable parts. Yellow warpaint covered his body and the armor. Two horns protruded from his back in a curved shape making a 'U' formation. The horns had an uneven surface and ended not in a point, but in a dull rounded fashion. They looked a bit like coral reef of ancient earth in texture and shape. The horns were purely ornamental. Upon both front hands a blade revealing a one handed sythe protruded. Like most Zell, he walked on all fours, but the sythe weapons were pointed slightly upwards so as not to interfere with his walking.

The new customer walked in front of the dead brute and stood on his hind legs.

Alexander couldn't let a good sucker punch opportunity get away. He swung his sword from above his head to the floor and released a sharp yellow crescent that hit the unsuspecting Zell enemy off guard. The Zell was pushed back by the energy crescent, but he did not fall down, and his armor and hide remained unbroken. The only evidence of the attack was a minor indentation running from his head to the base of his legs and some of his warpaint was blasted off.

"Your above average.", Alexander said

Alexander attacked again swiping his sword in a cross pattern that resembled an 'x'. It was a more powerful attack, sending two slicing crescent simultaneously. When performed by an expert the first crescent travelled modestly slower than the second, allowing both to combine the moment they reached the target.

His Zell opponent opened his mouth wide and a chaotic spatial distortion geometry appeared only two feet in front of him. The slicing crescents struck the spatial distortion geometry and their energy was distributed in every direction some portion damaged the intended target.

Bolts flew from the Zell's mouth in rapid succession. Alexander summoned his shield to block the bolts, and began a clockwise run around his opponent. The bolts were noticeably stronger than anything he had experienced before and the shield struggled to hold. When the bolt attack subsided Alexander jetted towards the Zell and brought down a mighty blow of glowing yellow sword from above. The Zell blocked with his right forearm armor, and a loud sound of metal clashing echoed throughout the cavernous room. It was Alexander's strongest attack and did no more than add a minor dent to a piece of equipment that was clearly not new to battle.

Rapidly the Zell swiped his left Sythe towards Alexander's undefended midsection. Alexander ignited his sword's retro thrusters sliding on his boots to a ten meter distance between him and the Zell. A trail of red human blood seemed to connect the two warriors. If he had reacted a moment later he would be in two pieces right now. The Sythe now glowed with green energy. Alexander's blood sizzled on the blade. He had a shallow horizontal cut spanning the length of his stomach.

Alexander's long shield zoomed in to bash the Zell. The Zell was not pushed back, but he had caught the shield in his jaws. With great effort he bit down on the shield and crushed it. The shield could repulse the most powerful attacks, but was not designed to be vertically compressed.

He spit out the shield. "Scum!", the Zell said. "You die human!", The gallery approved of the poorly scripted dialog with rousing cheers.

"You ARE above average. I have faced many Zell, none stronger than you.", He was stalling a bit for his numbing meds to mask the pain coming from his stomach. “I’m so impressed I can’t wait to have you stuffed for my plunder room” Alexander added that to please the fans while he weaved in important talk… talk being the only thing that could save him from this situation.

"Tell me Zell, we humans have often wondered, 'why do you fight us?'"

Gra’all seemed perplexed. He spoke slowly and calmly, “We made to kill humans. Humans made to kill us? Zell and Humans best friend. Fight for fun. When all humans die, Zell die too.”

“Ok” Alexander said…. He was a little taken aback that the human race faced extinction because of this absolute stupidity.

“And … yep, we love you too, Zell…. Do you think there is another way we could have fun together. Seems sad it will all be over if one of us wins… maybe we can keep on playing.

“Welll, we like just kill you because You the greatest Man. We kill the Greatest Man. We win. But then they make us kill the others too before we die. Less fun but better than build society or something… so bore.”

Alexander did not expect Gra’al’s answer. Had the Zell been engineered to destroy the human race? That would imply another entity that was the true enemy of humanity.

Alexander looked to the gallery. “Who here speaks for all of the Zell! I request counsel!” But he was ignored. As a matter of fact his flat words didn’t go over well in his fan base. He caught himself and said “I wanna talk about Lets talk about turning this arena into a grinder and grinding all the zell to bits for a laugh.” …. Audience recovered.

Alexander discovered there was something of an elite booth amongst all the rabble. It was shaded and unclear what was really happening. Behind he saw tree figures… in shadow. One was a tiny humanoid-like but frail and floating in a bubble of liquid without a tank of any sort.

The next was something of a robot…. It looked like a weird salt shaker with the top and bottom being symmetric with 3 thin legs and 3 thin arms.

And the fourth was a giant humanoid… probably 2.5 to 3 meters tall and covered in a cloak. Alexander could barely make out this creature’s body–and the face was shrouded in sorcery but his feet were exposed and they seemed exactly as a human foot would look like. The cloak seemed to flow and wasn’t from fabric but some sort of energy.

In each case the creatures shared eyes of the dark hue. the same hue that Alexander felt earlier in the Destiny…. It was a color that subtracted rather than added yet that it was there was strongly felt.

Each of these three creatures seemed to have some sort of crown that hovered above their heads and followed them wherever they went. The crown looked like some kind of rock and each was set a crystal glowing with the dark hue.

He appealed to Gra’al to get the identities of the 3: "Who tells you? Who is your master?", Alexander asked.

Gra’al shrugged…. The fight would have to continue soon.

He returned to scanning his enemy for a weakness. He was settling on an unarmored section near Gra’al’s right arm pit.

The crowd started jeering. If they didn't get back to fighting soon the entire stadium of Zell would rush onto the battlefield and kill both of the contestants in anger.

“Death is our master, Alexander” the tall creature said. “Now kill him Gra’al”

Gra’al leapt towards Alexander. The crowd's attitude flipped immediately making approving noises for the latest spectacle.

Gra’al sailed in a Ten meter arc and brought down both Sythes upon Alexander's freshly vacated position, Alexander dodged the attack by one meter. Gra’al’s attack impacted the floor causing a shock wave and leaving a small crater behind.

Quick attacks from Gra’alls followed and Alexander did nothing but Perry. The attacks were still strong without a jet assist from his sword Alexander would not be able to block his opponent at all.

They separated again, and Gra'al opened his mouth wide. A spherical pool of green energy began to coalesce in front of this gaping mouth. He put his scythes in the sphere and they absorbed the energy readily. This next attack would be strong.

Alexander prepared his defence stance. This was the moment he would defend with all his strength and the moment the attack began to subside his pre programmed sword would jet directly into Gra’al’s weakest point.

The Sword had one unique defence mechanism. It was a blocking technique enabled by the adamant engine. Similar to the exceed engine, which could temporarily nullify the mass of an object and allow it to displace itself at lightning speed, the Adamant engine worked by increasing the effect of mass of an object without increasing its weight. When the adamant engine was engaged it took great power to move even an inch yet could still be held in place by the wielder.

The attack commenced. Gra’als leapt in his traditional fashion and brought down both scythes towards his opposition's head.

Alexander positioned his sword horizontally right in the path of the concave side of the Sythes. A great shock wave occurred when they met. The power of Gra'al’s attack transferred through Alexander's armor and created a new crater. The adamant engine engaged in the nick of time and held the sythes at bay. The weapons contradicted each other as Gra'al used every bit of his might to cut through Alexander's sword. The sword edge emitted the brightest yellow energy. At the point of contact sparks

And Alexander's power was fading. The power in his sword was diminishing and fatigue began to set into Alexander's body. The two fighters looked into each other's eyes. Gra'al pushed his mouth forward to get close enough to bite, but it was futile. Alexander wished he had brought a dagger he could plunge into the vulnerable stop while he was protected by his blocking shield.

The powerful attack had been mostly spent and Gra'al began to withdraw for a new strike. That was the moment. Alexander triggered his sword to disengage the adamant engine, turn and jet directly into the left shoulder of his nemesis. The sword penetrated into Gra'al body, but stopped at about three inches. The blade did not pass the carapace layer and was another two inches from slicing into actual flesh. Gra'al had grabbed the sword with his left hand and held it.

Alexander initiated an overload buildup in his sword. He wouldn't get to deliver a detonation to Gra'al innards, but his outer layer of carapace would be blown off, leaving him vulnerable to an attack as weak as a fingernail scratch.

But in his enthusiasm to end his foe, Alexander had disregarded his defence. Gra'al plunged his right hand sythe deep into Alexander's lower chest, piercing all the way through his body. He lifted him off the floor and Alexander's body limped like a puppet that had its strings cut. Gra'al cast him away several feet; Alexander landed on his back and slid for a few feet.

The crowd went absolutely wild.

Alexander's left lung had been pierced. His breathing was now labored. His armor could not keep him in fighting condition with this new injury and the armor itself was greatly damaged. Blood had spilled out of Alexander's mouth covering his internal visor. He struggled to take off his helmet. His head was revealed and he gasped for air.

The sword exploded knocking Gra'al on his back. His shoulder section was completely exposed and green Zell blood flowed from his wound. Gra'al laid motionless.

Alexander herd the explosion but was too exhausted to lift his head. In his dazed state he did not entertain any pessimism, for example, he did not worry if the mission might fail. He was euphoric at the moment.

Tears streamed from the corner of his eyes over the sides of his face. He looked up at the lights and imagined he was viewing the stars in the heavens. He gave into a delusion to himself that he had done it. He had saved the human race. He smiled and coughed up more blood.

And in the picturesque view of the heavens a face slowly crept in from below. It was Gra'al. He had survived the blast. Dispair enveloped Alexander immediately.

Gra'al grabbed Alexander by the arms and legs and held him high.

"THIS IS THE GREATEST MAN!", he shouted. Predictably An Uproarious clamour of excitement hit a peak.

Gra'al lowered Alexander and held him by his shoulders and touched his feet to the ground... it was the only way Alexander could stand at this point. His head was pointed downward and he struggled for air.

"How you want die, Great Man?", Gra'al asked politely.

“drop him.", a powerful voice said. Gra'al immediately obeyed and dropped Alexander back into his previous position, on his back looking at the sky.

The humanoid figure was approaching.

Some complaining noises started to hum from the gallery. The onlookers could not tolerate a momentary interruption of pure violence.

"shut up.", The figure said.

The noise continued.

"SHUT UP!" The figure yelled, and from his right hand a bright magenta ribbon of energy surged outwards, he wielded it like a whip and brought it about in a circular pattern over his head. Anywhere the ribbon touched, or anywhere even near the ribbon exploded. of the twenty-eight thousand Zell watching, only about three thousand survived the whip. The limbs and guts from the unlucky ones rained into the fighting arena. The elite section remained untouched.

Gra'al backed away. In a very un-Zell-like way he was afraid of the cloaked figure.

Alexander lay on the floor; he was now struggling to take deep breaths with his one good lung. He would inhale and hold it in for a few seconds then exhale. The very weight of his own chest would suffocate him in a short while.

The figure came into view just as Gra'al had earlier. Above his head floated something difficult to describe. It was about six inches in diameter; spheroidal save for three fat and short protruding elements that pointed in three opposing directions; It was made of smooth, black stone except for the very center of the front portion where a glowing 'something' resided. The glow of the dark hue.

The dark figure spoke in deep and gruff tones. "You fool. You endangered us all. The reckless ambition of one man nearly killed the entire human race forever.”

Alexander could not retort in his current condition.

“I have hated you for years. I have contested you from the shadows and now I spit on you as you die."

"I want you to know that the fold systems will not work as you expect. I saw to that myself. I want you to know The Ronin fleet will be obliterated to the last atom as there is no chance for escape. I want you to know that there is no way you can defeat this enemy, no amount of hubris or luck can possibly harm your true enemy for they have power beyond your imagination."

Alexander filled his lung with air to speak but nothing came out… he returned to his futile task of recovering his breath to live a few more seconds.

"It may comfort you to know that the human race will live on, but they will never be free again. Of course you have put your own ambition before your race time and again, and as you die I'm sure you feel no different."

The dark figure lightly stepped on Alexander's chest as he was trying to inhale one of his deep breaths.

"I want you to know who did this to you. I want you to see who you underestimated. I want you to see your better." The figure gently removed his mask.

A glimmer of recognition twinkled in Alexander's eyes.

“Yes. I beat you. Now, die, you scourge of humanity!"

The figured stepped hard on Alexander's chest. Air rushed out his mouth. He twitched a little as he tried his best to take another breath, but he would never inhale again.

He crushed the last bit of life out of Alexander's body with his foot.

****

In space, several kilometers away from the Red Destiny, Fae sat in the stealthy escape pod in a fetal position. She had obeyed Alexander's command and had not observed any part of the battle. She stared at a single readout. It was Alexander's pulse. It blipped more and more softly and then flatlined.

And thimbles worth of Androsynth tears floated through the pod.

FAE VS LESS

PART 4: FAE VS LESS

FAE*DRA HAILS A RIDE

A Utility Engineer was probably the lowest lifeform in the universe that required an advanced degree. They held the unkind designation of being called ‘Undies’--not because they were some sort of twisted underwear inspectors (although that would be a promotion)-- they were Undies because they were the only role under that of the Tactical Engineer “Supporties”. It was a cruel and stupid hierarchy.

An Undie was usually tasked with cleanup work including: collecting debris, installing ordinance, operating high tech equipment and really every job that you can imagine but wouldn’t want to imagine.

Mike and Sal were two undies working on a micro tug cleaning up after the battle of Illus. Their present charge was the detection, evaluation and extraction of any damaged equipment that might have value. At the moment Mike and Sal were attempting to tow a derelict drone ship back to the flotilla.

The drone was recoverable, but gnarled from battle and unwieldy which made it tumble when towed. Any attempt to get the drone back to the flotilla with standard techniques would result in tumbling and that would mean slower speed, constant reacquisition of target and high difficulty in steering.

The cockpit of the tug was very cramped and had little room for the two engineers. The space reserved for a center console had been torched off in favor of a makeshift spaceworthy chess table with actual physical pieces.

They discussed the issues with the cargo and the most efficient way to get the valuable wreckage back to the flotilla:

“The front is bent back like a goose with a broken neck.” Mike said as he sipped his coffee.

“We need to get some bot to cut it off and weld it to the back somehow to make the weight distribution nice and even,” Sal proposed.

Mike: “That’ll take a while. Why not oscillate the tractor beam and booster assembly to cancel the wobble instead. It can be done by computer instead of chopping stuff off”

Sal: “Ah, good idea…. *sigh* We’ll be back to work in no time.”

They both stared at the chess game for a while. They were 20 moves in.

Mike: “Of course with YOUR idea we can get the bot to do the work and play more chess. No one needs to know we aren’t dummies.”

“Of course we can’t let them know that”, Sal conspired.

Suddenly the drone experienced a catastrophic explosion.

“Did you do that?”, Sal asked.

“No, but it would have been a good idea. Now we can say it exploded right before we got to the Flotilla. Even more time for chess!”

But there would be no chess. A large crash rocked the tug and the internal atmosphere completely evacuated. Sal and Mike's Utility Engineering overalls spared their lives with fast acting temporary helmets for
protection from the harshnesses of space.

"Who shoots a Tug?" Sal asked inquisitively.

"She does I guess." Mike pointed to a pretty girl that floated into the craft like an invited guest.

Repair bots from all over the ship scurried to the wound like blood platelets and rapidly applied temporary measures to restore pressure to the vessel.

"Undies give control" Fae*Dra commanded.

"Welll, we’re not supposed to do that" Mike

“Yeah, like… we could lose our jobs.” Sal mentioned.

“Undies give control or no more Undies..”

“Oh! You’re gonna kill us if we don’t? They can’t fire us for that. It’s yours..”

Control was transferred and Fae*Dra immediately changed the operational parameters and got the tug under way… under very way VERY fast.

"Uhm.... you are running the thrusters at 135%. their recommended operational level is 65%. We
don't ever go over 65%...."

“Undie's stay quiet" was Fae*Dra's reaction.

They reached the Red Destiny.

"The Red Destiny!?" We're not allowed to tow elite ships like this!" (noresponse)

Time passed.

Sal looked at Mike then the chess board and shrugged. They started playing.

.The Tow made little sounds prepping for an unusual tractor grab… a lot of cutting could be heard and the undies witnessed important parts of the Tug floating off in space.

“Uhhm…. “ Sal started to speak, but thought it not worth the effort to be ignored again.

Then the boosters ignited with power its handlers knew not it had and the
tow and Red Destiny made its way back to the Flotilla rapidly.

A large piece of the ship made a sound like it broke and splintered all to hell.

“I think one of the tractor emitters just got yanked out of its socket,” Mike pointed.

“not safe" Sal added

"Undies stay quiet", She commanded.

Sal was reasonable and lent to Fae*Dra and kindly
informed: “We'll help you with your mission, but the thing is, the way you are
flying the tow it could up exploding…”[pause]”... exploding with us inside it.”

"Then undies can play Chess in space. " A portal open and the gaseous
innards of the tug escaped a second time nearly blowing Mike completely
out of the ship.

Mike pulled himself back in and rationalized, "We don't like to play chess in space. All the pieces float away and then Sal accuses me of cheating..."

from Sal: "What we mean is the ship could blow up.” PAUSE. “With YOU in it” … Also a pause. “And we don’t want YOU to get blown up.” final pause … “or do you?”

"Can't die in space" she seemed to be referring to how she could live in a vacuum and answered in a way that should end the conversation.

Sal gave a smile.... “but girl. WE”-- (indicating himself and Rekseop) “WE can die in space. I understand it is quite pleasant for you."

Now done with this conversation Fae charged her finger beam and pointed it to the Chess game board.

"Undie's quiet else:" She zapped the Chess board with minimal energy and it went up in minor
Flames.

"Trump card" Mike said as both extinguished the fire and saved enough pieces.

They looked at each other and accepted that there was no way around being towed back to the Flotilla by a small crazy girl with a powerful finger beam that could easily vaporize their beloved hobby and then Themselves then evacuate the atmosphere venting their charred ashes into space. That was the whole of the situation.

A long pause.

“This really isn’t even a strange day for an Undie”, Sal added.

Fae Dra's finger began to draw power again and both Undies snapped back to
Playing chess like they had important work to do...

Key Item

It was immediately obvious why the vault conveyance for normal items wasn't working as well.... the entire place was crawling with Tekanoids.

"Nand!" Less commanded her to handle the situation... She created a spatial distortion cone and pushed it through the crowded space knocking all the little tekanoids on their backs, but not hurting them much.

Tekanoids were not intentionally harmful to anyone but their mere presence was a concern. Their entire interest was new technology. They were the carrion eaters of deep space and showed up after every battle looking for things to take. And often they showed up DURING the battle if the battle scenario seemed already tidally locked.

They looked like little shiny silver metallic children with a rounded head hunched over something like a metal lipstick cover for a body... Their hands and feet were metallic black. The face was a smooth round glass surface like a vid screen that would project facial expressions like usually blue eyes and below a speaker for making noises and from their mouth sometimes extended a long soft metallic prehensile tongue. Actually they looked like little salt shakers that came to life and waddled all over the place.

When not being bowled over by a minor spatial distortion cone, they liked to look at things and especially feel for technology... In this room every button, every junction box and every wire had been certainly fondled by Tekanoids as the chit chatted about the quality and vintage of their finds.

And the "pat pat" process with the hands was not just a ritual... they were sharing information with other castes, bigger and scarier customers that would start lasering off the good stuff and hauling it to their salvage craft.

That meant the rest of the vault would soon be broken into and Lester's prize would be lost forever if he did not act.

As Tekanoids recovered their faces flashed with red disapproving eyes and they made a clicking noise. It was their way of saying "This is our stuff"..... their giant tongues swayed back and forth pointing at the things Lester and his crew and that was a way of saying "something bigger is going to come and you're going to get it.

Critter went wild and jumped from tekanoid to tekanoid yanking tongues and knocking them down again and occasionally he summoned his inner ancestor and beat his chest like he was powering up to go super gorilla.... that seemed to put them in disarray.

Xor stepped up to give them a point blast taste of plasma cannon which would have settled the issue and wrecked the room, but before he could unleash hell's inferno Nand stopped him violently... The two rolled around on the floor fighting each other. In one case they flattened a couple tekanoids which further increased the Tekanoids’ agitation.

It was quite the chaotic mess, but adequate for Lester's needs. Whether the Tekanoiids would leave or not was no matter as long as they stayed out of his way.

Lester started to approach the console, he entered his credentials and summoned biological artifact IM-RY3 . The vault seemed to be working fine which was a relief. Lester assumed some connection to the conveyance was the reason he couldn't receive his personal item since the vault itself was completely intact.

In a moment a hatch opened and up ascended IM-RY3 in the form of a standard storage cube for a cryogenic biological component... that meant it contained technology to keep its contents alive in some sort of cryogenic hibernation. Lester grabbed the container . It required two hands to hold and was about the width of his torso.

Lester then used the console to summon a few items to assist in the getaway.

The tekanoids were getting fed up and starting to leave. Less began the process of attaching floatation clamps to the cube so he nor his companions would be burdened with carrying it since they surely had other tricky challenges headed their way before they survived the flotilla dwindleing into chaos.

Just as he finished one of those challenges presented itself. A tight beamed red laser blast cut through the room zapping between Lester and his prize and hitting a cluster of piled up junk behind. The hit caused a huge explosion pushing Lester forward in a roll and knocking Lester's prize to the far corner.

The Tekanoids cheered and made a new clicking sound, running around with their hands in the air. Critter, now frightened, stopped his rampage and jumped to Lester to see if he was okay and Nand and Xor stopped fighting each other for a moment.

Something big had to be dealt with but to Lester the Tekanoids finally got too annoying. Lester merely said "Nand, let him" both bots knew what that meant.... Xor then stepped forward and without harassment released a small plasma blast into the Tekanoid crowd sending tekanoids careening in every direction.... when they bounced off the walls and came to rest on the floor none were killed but they certainly had too much and each in turn got up to scurry away.

Nand wasted no time while Xor shooed the small fry .... she was blocking the thing that had fired at Lester and ready for battle. It turned out the Tekanoids had summoned a Tekanoid rollie which had just laser drilled through the wall.

Rollies were long centipede like robots a little larger than a man... They had a powerful cutting and attacking laser in their mouth as well as chewing mandibles. Rollies shared a glass expression plate for their face and their exterior armor segments were made of smooth silvery metal exactly like the Tekanoid salt shakers themselves. Finally rollies could roll into a ball to protect all their softies making them a little hard to kill at times.

This Rollie was going to be a little tough, beyond Critters skill of head leaping and chest beating. The Warbots were going to have to throw down.

The Rollie was laying down a constant beam on Nand who was using a spatial disturbance field to dissipate energy.... the two countered each other in a slow clockwise move around the room. It was a game of attrition waiting to see who would run out of stamina first for both attack and defence of energy weapons consumed power.

A second Rollie slithered through the opening who Xor instantly blasted to bits. Then a third Rollie leapt through, but this one rolled into a ball and Xor's attack was ineffective

A fourth and a fifth rollie began to slither through.

Lester decided to end Nand's stalemate first. "Xor interrupt and Nand 'rang' him.. execute."

Xor then jumped in between Nand and the lasering Rollie interrupting the beam with his own distortion field while at the same time Nand released her boomerang which arced around all combatants and sliced the rollie in two between its segments then returned to Nand.

Lester lunged for his prize box, but was assailed by another Rollie whose mandibles were wide open and prepped to snip something off of Lester he might miss but the techno monster was foiled when Critter intercepted and held between them and with great strength held the mandibles at bay.

Lester shoved the weak beam emitter of his tac wrench right under the rollie's segment and gave a sustained blast. Smoke and a frying sound could be heard as well as what looked like some sort of soldiery goo started dripping out of the belly. Critter noticed the pressure being exerted by the mandibles began to weaken and then the Rollie just fell to the ground.

They were being quite a team, but more and more rollies kept coming through and the crack in the wall was getting bigger.

Lester grabbed his prize and started a fighting retreat back to the conveyance.

Then.... a small explosion was heard on the other side of the crack and the rollies stopped coming through.... as a matter of fact the rollies there decided to retreat.

Lester could hear the rollies hissing and clicking in the same way to protest the presence of some claim jumper but that didn't last long. Things were already escalated and it sounded like a barrage of laser blasts from the rollies had been unleashed early but they sounded all over the place and as if they couldn't get their target.

Lester winced at the sounds... there were clearly a lot more rollies on the other side than he had anticipated and if not for this lucky development escape may not have been possible.

Then for almost a moment a ruckus of bangs, scrapes and the satisfied sound of steel being sheared like a sharp knife cutting paper and things got much quieter.

Clearly there was at least one Rollie left ... he was still clicking and hissing but he was retreating back through the crevice and then BOOM! A much larger hole exploded into the anteroom spraying debris and parts of rollie everywhere.

Some Girl or Something

Lester knew he had to run but was frozen with curiosity. What terrible creature could easily dispatch so many deadly foes so quickly. He didn't have to wait long.

Through the smoke of the new entry wound a small figure floated into plain view. It was a nine-year-old girl.

She pointed her tractor finger at Lester's vault box IM-RY3. The box flew to her hand. She turned and floated back into the smoke.

Lester stood dumbfounded for a moment... at a complete loss.

Xor started to pursue the girl, but Nand blocked his path... this time a stern look of yellow eye lights was all that was needed after both had their daily fill of fisticuffs. Critter also looked to Lester for guidance, stifling his instinct to swoop over and steal the loot.

"Was that a human or a bot? She was the strongest thing I have ever seen. And why did she take my personal vault item,"

A second vault item was just delivered... a fresh supply of bomblets in the form of a bandolier .... 64 ammo in all... a powerful pistol side arm, top rated Tactical Engineering trousers and Tactical Engineering armor Lester donned his new gear still in a daze.

He continued to think: 'Clearly this being was human if only in part and could not be blown up just like every other problem we've faced recently because of ethics. Plus she has it. The whole thing I'm here to protect.

"warbots, begin mission."

"objective: acquire cube from girl. constraints: safety for girl."

"sub Critter. begin Mode: mobile stealth. track 'her'. stream reports. execute"

Critter burst through the broken wall tracking the mystery girl...

"sub Xor: grant auth on attack to Nand revoke on Xor:

Xor shuttered at this and Nand delighted... Xor could no longer use any attack without Nand's approval.

"sub Nand: grant auth on defend to Xor revoke on Nand" Nd approval from Xor for defensive actions."

"release constraint condition: if defences > attacks * 5 override Nand."

(meaning for every 5 defences that Nand allowed Xor would get one attack without the need for approval from Nand....

IT was a cleaver program of checks and balances to keep the two from failing the mission because of their proclivities.

"execute" the plan was now in effect!

Unexpectedly Critter flew backward piercing the smoke reentering the room at high speed and crashed into the opposite wall. No damage, but a bit of a shock.

Lester speaking to himself again, "Yes, this will be harder than I thought"

He composed himself for a while and connected to the Flotilla feed… seek… scan… seek… GOTCHA! Lester found her via the Flotilla surveillance.

"She's in the conveyance.... not sure her final destination, but she'll soon pass through junction TL-22-22-8. That's where we will nab it" He had made a hasty plan as he needed to quickly recover the cube and get everyone off the flotilla. He accessed the Vault and summoned a thunder spear.

Twelve minutes later Lester and crew were in their ambush position

The girl sailed through junction TL-22-22-8 as smooth as glass with cube in tow very unlike the bumbling and tossing of Lester’s technique earlier.

At the appointed place a precision explosion ripped through the tube mere meters in front of the girl.... it was a thunder spear that passed right through and that pierced two holes about half a meter in diameter each.

20 milliseconds later the girl passed the cavity and Critter leapt through the first piercing grabbing the cube with his tail and sailed through the exit wound.... in another second the girl was hundreds of meters away,

Critter barreled into Lester's arms... both elated they had recovered the. huh? Critter's tail and the cube were both missing! What went wrong?

Lester looked at the feeds again and noticed that the cube was still with her with part of Critter’s tail flapping in the wind... attached to the cube but severed from Critter himself.

'She countered us in milliseconds.' He thought.... I can't go easy on her... she's dangerous even if she is a little girl.

Lester observed the spy feeds a little more.... He watched as she ripped through a small rabble of Zell like they were paper.

She's going to the elite hanger he was finally able to discern... who is she and what is she up to? A malfunction?

Girl vs the ZELL

Lester's 3rd plan to foil the girl with super powers was by way of stealth and help from the Zell and most importantly he resolved to abandon ethics.

Of course Less and the Zell weren't allies, but it stood to reason that if she got into a fight with a large host of Zell she would either flee, leaving the cube or get killed.

Lester figured the Zell themselves would have no interest in the cube and when they left he could retrieve it later so long as a Tekanoin salt shaker parade didn't clepto its way through the aftermath later.

Less watched from an air vent high, high in the ceiling of a large spacecraft repair bay. As the girl casually walked towards the hanger -- her presumed destination -- two squads of Zell would be injected by Xor and Nand.

Anyone who thought they could herd Zell doesn't know the Zell, but Lester had a great plan. Lester had equipped Critter with his bomblets and given him a little training on the proper care and feeding of high yield explosives and sent him off to harass the Zell in various places. He also equipped the tiny robot with a megaphone speaker attachment so he could play recordings like "Zell are stink... They need ath bomb" BOOM!

Of course such obnoxious behavior caused the Zell to chase Critter who was able to escape at lightening speed (including the ability to use exceed to avoid blast bolts and tractor whips.) And it was to this point, far below a large invading army of Zell spilled into the maintenance room spoiling for a fight with a little monkey bot who just zipped past a little girl as if to say "if you wanna get to me you gotta go through this single layer cardboard box first.

The girls stopped cold and this was a good sign that she knew she faced a challenge... the sinister agents of the Zell slowed as they approached her. Among them were at least fifty rabble and three Brutes--each of whom bore a Zell boss. They would surely tear that precious thing to bits.

Lester’s look of satisfied anticipation gave way to a more empathetic expression, "What have I done." He whispered. But I have to have it.” Then from her backpack some things emerged. One, Two, Three floating blades detached and surrounded her–their pointy sides facing the enemy. The blades were each about 30 centimeters in diameter and perfectly triangular.

Each vertex was a sharp cutting edge. They could fly in any direction but on one of the edges was a flattened booster.

"Kill her" a Zell boss fired off this command nonchalantly and a single rabble charged towards her... when he got near two blades stopped him by pressing their flat sides on either edge of his belly to give him a squeeze. Trapped as he was he could not stop her from floating him directly over the Zell boss that gave the order to attack and while he hovered there the third blade cut the floating Zell in two releasing all its blood an innards over the Zell boss.

All blades returned to their starting position flanking the girl. The entire move seemed to be an

opening warning from Fae telling the Zell, "Don't try me"

"Sprawl, you moron... can't even kill a girl.... YOU ATTACK!", the 2nd Zell boss thought he could do better and another non-descript Rabbel launched the exact same attack.

But as he approached he was bonked on the head by a suddenly appearing blade on the blunt side with such force that he did a back flip right overtop the 2nd Zell boss. At the moment a second blade severed the animal in two right through the anus. Blood and guts rained all over the 2nd Zell boss.

"Ha Ha HA! YOu crimping fools, you can't even kill a simple human without getting slop all over you." Lester recognized this Zell's voice for it was Vraylar once again.

"We really need to kill that guy next time", Lester thought

"We do not fear your trapazoids, girl", the first Zell said.

"They aren't trapezoids, they are rectangles!", said the second Zell.

"Fool, you don't know your weapons. They are trapezoids because first they trap you then they slice you" said the first"Wrong, they are Rectangles... didn't you see how they enter through the rectum?"

"Idiots!" It was Vraylar's turn to 'add' to the conversation.... "They are TriAngles, because I will win on the third attack with three Zell. I will demonstrait.... Triple attack now!"

But before any assailant could take a step to threaten her all three in Vraylar's attack group had lost their heads and the girls weapons seemed to have returned already... ready for the next wave.

"Charge her!" Vraylar said with anger fueled by his pride.... a LARGE number this time, between 20 and 30 Zell launched a melee attack... Fae*Dra simply stood there, completely unconcerned. They pounced on her and tore the area to threads... then paused... one Zell looked to Vraylar and said "She's gone" Then a large piece of equipment fell from the ceiling killing all thirty asialants.'

Lester spoke to himself, “keep underestimating this one…” The he saw the cube laying safely away from the carnage. He didn't know where she was only that now was his time... with the help of Critter he began his decent to the surface.

"Where is she? Where did she go?" Vraylar said with bruised pride.

"yo." She replied. She was standing on Vraylar's brute directly behind Vraylar.

The two other Brutes saw this and lunged to attack her, but when they got there both her and Vraylar’s brute had been moved to another location in an instance..... the two Brutes ended up tearing each other to bits also killing their riders.

The remaining twenty or so Zell were now in a frenzy of fear and from atop the last Brute she fully released her three blades which started flying in a tight spiral pattern all around her position. Zell and Zell body parts were being tossed around like they were in a cyclone of razor blades with the girl in the eye

of the storm.

Less' feet were firmly planted on the ground about 10 meters from the cube ...he tip-toed as best he could to retrieve it before his distraction was done for.

The screams from the Zell had stopped, yet she let the 'blender' run for a few more seconds for good measure.

Then sillence.

Vraylar looked straight up to see the girl behind him.... he started yanking the reins frantically trying to get it to save him, then he looked down and realized he was sitting on a floating head.

The girl was pointing at him, presumably with a tractor finger causing him and the head to float. The body of the Brute was ruined on the floor and the girl herself was just floating in the same place before she decapitated her stand.

Vraylar undid his stirrups and the head fell to the ground.... the girl twisted him around to face her.

Less grabbed the cube and started running to the extraction point where

Critter waited to whisk him away...

The girl looked at Vraylar for a second then reversed the polarity and increased the pulse strength of her finger tractor sending poor Vraylar flying into a wall 300 meters away. Splat!

Lester ran and was almost to Critter when all the sudden something hit him in the buttocks so hard it flipped him upside down.... as he sailed through the air he was hit in the butt probably another dozen or so times. And when he crashed in a pile of debris he realized the cube was gone.

"Spankings are for TacEng, because Alexander say no kill TacEng."

The Cube floated back to her, she turned and continued walking like she had just encountered a minor obstacle.

Pause of defeat…"I don't have a chance of beating her" Lester said as he rubbed his heinie. But… she said “Alexander….”

He performed more facial closeups and did some image enhancements and cross photo computer analysis and then -- no way. He recognized this person. This was his brother's Androsynth. Lester's blood boiled, "What in the hell is he doing with my vault cube!" ... he furiously tried to raise him on the comms but nothing. Lester assumed he was in some battle somewhere... the world was going to hell but he wanted his answer anyway.

Ok. all bets are off. I'm going to talk to this androsynth before she gives the cube to Alexander. And if either of them get in my way all bets are off. I've beaten you before, you know…

CHAPTER FAE*DRA AND LESS

Fae*Dra had entered the large aircraft maintenance complex and was calmly walking to the connected hanger.

Lester ran to approach her and yelled "Androsynth! Stop what you are doing. That vault cube is mine!"

"TacEng go away", she replied without breaking her stride.

"I know what you are doing.... I will use all force if I have to"

No reply.

Lester fixated on the cube... his obsession watered down his judgement. "Well, if that's how it is, send Alexander my regards".

BOOM! In a flash a triangular blade instantly appeared in front of Lester's face.

It must have traveled at an undetectable speed. Lester could still feel strong air current pushing back his cheeks as the blade settled in thin air, vertical in orientation bisecting his face down his ventral line.

"Care what you say TacEng." ... the blade pushed closer with the tip pinching Lester's nose... "Else there will be two TacEng... one that falls to the left and one that falls to the right."

With that point made very clear to Lester he backed off of his plan to detonate explosives above her. He and his team were no match for this androsynth. The cube was lost to him.

He sat on the ground in despair...

"Why does he want it anyway? Why does my brother want with.--" with those words Fae*Dra stopped, turned and looked at Lester for the first time... her eyes seemed to be making some computer analysis.

"You are Lester Mann... half brother to Alexander Holmes. You are the best TacEng in the Ronin fleet but lazy and disengaged." She was reading from a script because she wasn't talking like herself.

"Alexander sent you to help with mission?" She asked.

"I dunno... why don't you ask him?"

Emotion welled up... "Alexander is dead. I am to take biological sample IM-RY3 to reflex point."

Lester stood back up and softened his demeanor. Alexander was dead. His brother was dead.... and maybe he was trying to save the cube all along.....more emotion welled up.

"Let me help you."

Fae*Dra repeated: "Lazy and unmotivated" like it was a rejection letter for a resume.

"The best tactical engineer in the Ronnin fleet. Alexander wrote that. He knew I could do this. And he also knew the ONLY thing I care about in this universe is in that cube. Take me and my companions and with your strength and my strategies we will complete the mission for sure."

A moment passed as Fae*Dra thought

"Accepted"

CHAPTER THE FORLORN HOPE

They entered the hanger and witnessed as the red destiny was being worked over by bots just as it had been before the previous mission. This particular work was grueling as the previous core was being cut out having been fused to the hull. The cannon blast stunt that Alexander pulled also damaged many subsystems not meant to handle such load and much had to be replaced.

Lester was interviewing Fae*Dra about the mission... he realized she didn't really understand what needed to be done but seemed confident in her ability to punch her way through her troubles. But he got most of his information from plans on file she shared with him.

"So the arks are going into a temporal fold....my understanding is that they will reemerge months or years later in another location having experienced almost no passage of time. Ok, that's good. But...looking at these readings something bothers me... it looks like the time dilation is such that they will unfold sometime after the end of the universe itself.... won't that be a problem?"

"We save them", Fae gave little nuggets of the plan that she didn't fully grasp.

"Yes, I see... a specific type of energy pulse (sorry this is not my field) will be used to dislodge the arcs near the Zell hatcheries and then the final battle will commence.... and how will that pulse be administered...."

"By the Ronin fleet" Fae*Dra was annoyed to have to tell him the obvious

"Uhm.... the Ronnin fleet is almost decimated.... there is no way anything can survive without folding and now we know the fold itself is a ticket to limbo"

"Stop being lazy TacEng" Fae commanded.

"Can the temporal fold variables be modified?"

"No"

We're gonna have to make a run for it then.... I know you love your ship, but maybe we would be better off in a cloaking vessel.

"The Red Destiny is Alexander's ship"

"I know but Alexander is..." He didn't want to get cleft in twain for dancing around that tricky subject....

"Tell me androsynth, what is your actuation number?"

"6"

Lester was annoyed, "No I meant your actuation number... the number of machines you can control besides your own body?"

"6" she said again.

"6? Hex? You are a Hex Actuator?"

"Affirm." Fae*Dra responded with muted robot pride

"Well now that's quite an asset" .... " Okay... we will make a run for it in the Destiny, but I will need modifications.. Using your credentials I have requisitioned a cluster of four boosters to zoom away. I'm replacing the core with a fusion core... antimatter is far more powerful but requires refueling. I am also having much of the inner battle equipment removed for we will instead need quarters for sleeping and eating and fabrication systems for repairing the ship in deep space... this ship is not made to fly a long mission like this without support after all.

Then a weird thing happened.... a hangar adjacent opened and an empty ship gently drifted to its moorings ready to be repaired and refueled. It looked exactly like The Red Destiny down to the last detail.

"What ship is that?" Lester asked.

"The Forlorn Hope"

"The Decoy ship used in the battle of ILLUS!" , Lester realized!

Well, this gives us quite a new asset. We might actually live through this. "Hmmm.... the forlorn hope...."