r/OpenHFY

This is the beginning of the second part of Bug Hunt, and will address the Bug War mentioned in the Planet Dirt series.

Book 1

Jack focused on the blue light outside the tube, ignoring the soldiers moving around outside.  He felt calm as he flexed his hands slightly. This would be a simple in-and-out mission.  

“God damnit my balls itch!”  Aziz’s voice broke the silence, and Jack chuckled.

“Then scratch it, you asshole, we don’t need to hear that!”  Paulo replied,

“I can't reach it, the damn tube is too small,” Aziz replied.

“You mean you're too fat? I told you to hold on to those Nalos burgers,” Mike replied.

“It's not fat, it's muscles.”

“Keep telling yourself that!”  Yun replied.

“Okay, that’s enough.  Don’t make the Nalos listing get naughty thoughts, we talked about it!” Jack replied, though he was smiling.

“Yes, DAD!” his crew replied, and he chuckled.  Then the light turned red. For a second, he felt a surge of force as the tube he was in went from zero to a couple of hundred kilometers an hour.  He loved this feeling. He could hear his crew screaming like little girls on a rollercoaster, and he joined in. The planet below was too focused on the giant space battle unfolding in the atmosphere to notice the five pods shooting towards an empty area of the planet.  Around them, 25 missiles followed their paths, hiding the pods among missiles that all failed to hit their targets by several kilometers.

The joyride was over too quickly, and soon the five pods landed with a thud on the surface. Jack checked the scans; nobody was around, but they had missed the landing spot by five clicks. He would have to deal with that when he got back.  He checked the atmosphere; the air on Fudios was breathable, with no known harmful viruses or bacteria for humans. He still kept the helmet on as he opened the hatch and got outside; the crew followed. 

Silently, they brought out the equipment and double-checked the area as Yun worked. Jack waited for the signals, and suddenly Yun spoke up.

“Channel secured.”

“Good. We are five clicks off the landing area.  And…” An alarm went off, and they all moved out as the display showed an incoming ship.  Jack looked at the landing area. It was a half-crater near a rocky landscape.  Perfect for an ambush. The pods were out in the open and would easily be spotted.  And he gave the hand signal to start the movie. There were no more words spoken, and they all grabbed the gear and vanished into the rocky terrain. Before they left, they all activated the self-destruct on the pods.  Jack was about a hundred meters away when the five pods melted away, turning them into what appeared to be missile impact craters. He found a hiding place, lay down, and watched. A minute later, a Gyrran shuttle flew past and stopped near the landing zone. It hovered over the crater for a minute, then slowly rose and flew off toward the original landing zone. Something was wrong.

He looked at the timer. They had 30 minutes to get out of the area before the next salvo of missiles would be fired to cover their landing and ensure the evidence of it was covered.  Hopefully, they would add it up to the captain being incompetent or acting on wrong intel.  He moved out and followed his men as they started the long trek towards the target. It was just an in-and-out mission, in, attach the spyware, and get out without being noticed, yet something was not right. It was that nagging feeling of something being wrong. 

He caught up with them as they moved silently through the rocky terrain. He could sense they all had the same feeling.  He raised his fist, and they all stopped and looked at him. He removed the lower part of the mask, and they all followed, then, with a push of a button, turned off all electronics.

“This stinks. Five clicks off target. And they sent ships to investigate?”

“Yeah, it feels like they knew. Do we abort?” Paulo asked, and Jack shook his head.

“No, we adapt. If we are correct, then the backup Junga.”

“Wouldn’t Rambo be better?”  Mike replied.

“Only if we have twins, if single, then Junga. Junga is the priority; Rambo is secondary. Understood?”

“Yes dad!” They all replied, and Jack put the lower part back on and turned the tech back on. They all followed suit.

“Well fuck that was weird. You all got the reboot?” Jack said.

“Yes, sir.” They replied.

Jack nodded, and they all got up and moved on.

“Still itching?”  Mike asked.

“Naw, thanks for the scratch by the way,” Aziz replied as he slapped Mike on the back. The crew laughed as they continued.

“And then the damn girl took off her mudmask, and she was prettier than her profile picture. I mean, I will never understand women.”

 They all stopped and turned to look at Yun. “You don't understand, woman?”

“Yeah.” She replied.

“You’re a woman. You don’t understand women?” Mike replied.

“Yeah. I don’t understand her, and I’m kinda a woman.” She replied.

“Kinda? That genetic enhancement doesn’t stop you from being a woman. Besides, didn’t you get them as an adult?” Paulo asked.

“So? Do you understand all men?” She replied, and all the men replied in unison, “Yeah!”

“Well, we don’t.” She replied, and she looked at Jack.

“What about the nalos? Are they just as difficult to understand?”

He looked at her, as his mind went to Zula. Damn, she was both easy and hard to understand.

“My brother-in-law told me Woman is the mystery the gods can't solve. I guess he is correct.”

He started walking again, and they followed after. It had been six hours since they landed, and the battle in the atmosphere had ended with the planned retreat.  They had seen ships fly by now and then as if they were searching for somebody, but a part of that, the hike had been quiet.  Mike, walking ahead, suddenly held up a hand, and they all melted into the terrain. Then he moved silently further ahead as he shared his view. On the display, they saw the Gyrran military communication center.  Then, in the blink of an eye, everything went black. Jack turned to heat vision and waited.  Fifteen Gyrran soldiers emerged nearby with rifles raised.

“Light!”

At his command, five flash grenades went off in their general direction, and the enemy was stunned as the darkness turned into day. It was all they needed as they quickly shot down the men.

“Junga! Let's die hard in this place!” With the command, Paulo let loose three drones and aimed them towards the base.  Jack checked on Mike, who was already in position, and started to snipe out the guards at the gates. Aziz adjusted his suit and gave Jack a nod, then launched himself into the air.  The covert mission was now a full assault on the base. Jack watched as two shuttles approached with reinforcements.  It would be a short assault, but they were going to sell it. He got out his rifle, aimed at the shuttle, and took a deep breath before firing.  

Aziz landed on the roof of the compound and dropped his payload right before an EMP grenade knocked him out. Mike got taken out by a hover tank. Though his life sign was still active.  Paulo was shot by several snipers and knocked down, also alive. It was clear they had orders to take them alive.  Jack knew he was not going to avoid this, but that wasn’t his goal now. He activated the suit's jets and launched himself towards the compound. The Gyrran took a second to readjust to his sudden frontal assault, and when he followed after, he had landed on the roof and jumped through the hole Aziz had so generously made for him. 

The Gyrran firefighters had a look of shock on their batlike faces as he landed inside. He shot two as he sprinted inside the building, and the AI translated the sign as he ran. He had two goals, and he had to fail one of them.  The alarms blared as he ran down the corridor. After five minutes of sprinting, he found his first target, the officer's control room. The Gyrran military guided everyone from these rooms, and when he reached the door, he blasted it open to the surprise of the officers inside. He rewarded the moment of surprise with three incendiary grenades and moved towards the secondary target, the communication center.  It took him ten minutes to get close, and he turned the corner just as a sledgehammer of a bolt hit his chest, and several bolts hit his armor. He tried to rise, but his vision was blurring. The last he saw was a Caren soldier looking down at him and firing again.

-Cast-

People

Jack Thompson

Aziz Khan

Paulo Silva - heavy

Mike Harrison – scout.

Yun Lee- hacker, female, genetically enhanced

Planet

Fudios

Species

Gyrran - a humanoid alien with a batlike visage and clawed hands.

Caren - a humanoid alien with snakelike skin, green/Yellow/red, and green, blue, bright red hair with yellowish reptilian eyes.

An old man limped through the waist-high weeds to the safety of the tree line. Drying blood caked the remains of his right trouser from at least a dozen cuts. His lungs stung from smoke and exertion. The man collapsed just beyond the dark shadow line. The smell of earth and moss filled his nose as he deeply inhaled. Ringing still filled his ears as he lay on the soft ground.

The attack was swift. As the early morning fog rose from the river bordering the village, several low ships slid past any watchers. Like a flood they poured over the shallow bank into the heart of the settlement, the main push rushing straight to the longhouse.

The old man dragged himself slowly to a wide tree, wincing as he sat against its trunk.

The market was quickly overrun, massive fur-clad men flipping tables, grabbing purses, and putting to the axe any opposition. The man's own stall sat on the north edge of the square, providing him precious time needed to run to the temple bells. When the alarm rang out over the village, three men charged toward him.

He peeled off his overshirt, tearing his sleeves into strips to dress his numerous wounds. The flow of blood was nearly stopped but he would need to find an apothecary soon to stave off the rot. His hand trembled from pain and age.

In his day, he was a warrior, a true warrior, knighted by His Majesty of Harsheld for his prowess against the armies of the western Isles. None had been his match in sword or pick. His day had long since passed.

He provided little resistance as the men dragged him through the streets to the longhouse, casting him into the mass of crying women and screaming children.

He felt his side, cringing as he applied pressure to his two broken ribs.

When each purse had been plundered and the gold leaf plaque torn from the village high seat, the men exited, boarding the doors. From a high window flew an arrow tipped with a small clay container. It struck the far wall flinging flaming liquid about the hall. The thatched roof quickly caught sending cinders falling on the heads of the condemned. The two high windows provided airflow enough to stoke the flames ever higher and hotter. Smoke snaked into every eye and lung.

The old man coughed violently against his tree. He wiped the sweat and tears from his eyes and leaned back against the hard bark. Despite the silence and stillness about him, the man could still hear the screams.

He tried to get them out. He tried to save as many as he could. There were too many. The raiders had crammed everyone into one hall and in the fiery panic everyone ran around trampling each other and preventing any coordinated escape. The old man was repeatedly knocked to the ground and had to crawl his way to the back of the hall. The fire had burned here the longest and he had hoped a weak spot would emerge. The wall was half collapsed when he rose to his feet and felt the cool air from outside. He turned back toward the crowd and shouted, calling them toward the treacherous exit. They did not hear. They did not listen. He ran toward the throng, but the flame had caused too much damage, and the structure began to collapse. He was struck by a falling timber and sent into the cobblestone floor.

The old man rubbed his beard feeling his throbbing jaw. A breeze gently blew into the trees from the fields and the coast far beyond.

For a time, he sat. As the ringing of his ears fell quiet, he listened to the waving leaves and the drone of small insects. As his nose recovered and shook the smoky smell, the dense scent of moss and damp wood took its place. The forest embraced him, and he drifted into a pained sleep.

Men formed from the mist, giants of condensed cloud bearing axes of ice and swords of flame. Each massive step shook the ground, sending the man running to the square. Graves stood all around him, many young, topped with dark fresh dirt. Some were ancient with crumbling stones marking their residents. Between two familiar markers the man made his stand. The foe approached with overwhelming force. Buildings fell and crumbled, the earth beneath them giving way to vast chasms. Cracks webbed out all around and he was falling, falling, ever deeper into the darkness. The darkness grew a face, the face of a young girl. The girl was familiar but foreign with features unseen in these lands. She smiled and ran her finger softly across his forehead. "Return to me" sang the girl and the man rose toward the firelight above, pulled with an unseen hand.

The man opened his eyes in the soft green light of the sun through leaves. Soreness gripped tightly to every muscle and joint. Aches tore up his leg and from his stiff side. The shade at least provided some comfort to the old man.

He sat enjoying the diffused light and the warmth of the soil beneath his scarred hands. When his strength was finally built up enough, the man shakily rose to his feet. The ringing quickly returned and bright light flooded the man's vision. Bark met his face with violent force.

He came to on the soft mossy dirt staring up at the vibrant green of the canopy. He grunted as he rolled over to raise himself back up. This time he hugged a small tree to aid his stability.

When the light and ringing came, he held tight and waited out the waves. Slowly his vision returned and the ringing subsided, bringing back the soft chitter of birds high above. He took a step, pain shooting up from his bandaged leg. He stood for a time building up courage for his next step. This time the pain decreased slightly, numbed from the previous. The cycle repeated from tree to tree until the pain became unbearable and the man found a nook in the hollow of an oak. He sat trembling from the strain, hunger and thirst adding to the choir of pain. A troubled sleep took him.

A wall of fire stood high before a young knight. Flaming men ran out hurling long spears of light in high arcs across the field birthing new flowering flames where they struck. The knight raised his sword and an army in shining plate crested the hill behind him. The armor reflected the flames, painting the earth in a sea of orange light. The men marched in unison carrying flowing banners and singing the song of war. The proud knight raised a cry of triumph riding before his men. Yet, as the army marched toward the flame, their armor began to rust and fall away revealing charred corpses. More spears flew from the flames striking the soldiers and spreading new fire throughout the field consuming all. The knight turned his horse toward his falling men, but his horse caught fire and turned to ash beneath him, launching him into the charred, thorny ground. The man rose to his knees watching the flames grow higher, ever higher.

As he watched his own armor once bright as day faded and aged. A wave of decay spread from the ground up the knight's armor until he dissolved into nothing. From the nothing emerged a face. The girl placed her hand on the man's charred body, pressing her fingertips deeply into the flesh. "Soon."

The man woke, sharp pain radiating from his chest. He gulped at the air and rolled onto his side as pain filled his being.

The pain subsided long after, leaving the man shivering on the ground, overtaken by his other pains. Birds chattered overhead. When their songs subsided and the chirping of frogs and crickets filled the darkening dusk the man rose to his knees. He did not have the energy to rise so he crawled across the forest floor. The man's eyes adjusted slowly to the dark and every now and then he was blinded by pain. Still, he pushed on.

The thin moon set not long after the sun, contributing to the darkness and making it hard to find good handholds and avoid obstacles. He felt his way across many roots, stones, and shrubs. One he felt had small, clustered berries which he ate quickly, thoroughly scraping his hands in hopes of finding more of the delicacy. If they were poisonous, he could find a remedy quicker than finding alternate relief to the hunger consuming him.

The man crawled one hand after the other, pained leg then not, for unknowable time. The sounds of the night grew louder around him with mammoth frogs seemingly just out of reach and the hooting of night owls above his head. The soft rumble of a stream to his right caused the old man to change course. His legs became too numb to use so he pulled himself from root to root with trembling hands.

When at last he reached the brook, he dove his head in, tears blending with the cool water. He drank his fill and rolled onto his back laughing and crying and laughing again. Fireflies buzzed around him. The bright insects shone like stars dancing around him, forming patterns and constellations, and falling to the ground in great crashes sending flames and stony debris across the battlefield. A scared boy rode a startled pony away from the front line to the lord's tent. He clutched an urgent letter tightly determined it would reach its destination. Still, more flaming projectiles flew. The horse jumped a deep crater landing hard on the far side but keeping its stride. Green flags waved ahead of him. Suddenly the boy was thrown from his saddle landing face first in a grasping thistle. Vines grabbed the boy, thorns like teeth pulling him deeper into its jaws. The boy saw his pony, already consumed by thorns, flies, and flames, and he wept. More fiery stones struck the ground filling the air with grey dust and ash. Out of the haze came a knight in armor of pure white slashing at the vines and freeing the shaking boy. The knight knelt down and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. Slowly they reached toward their ornate helm and raised the visor revealing only an inky darkness. From the darkness came a girl, emerging from the void and embracing the boy. Darkness swirled around the haze until the whole world was darkness, the arms of the girl, and her gentle face. They flew up into the air so high the stars appeared. She released the boy, sitting beside him and watching the bright lights from so far swirling and dancing around them. She looked at him, placing a hand on his. "I'll be waiting."

The man blinked, staring into the woods and watching the fireflies dancing around him.

When the morning sun lit the forest, the old man found himself near the edge of the woods. He quickly decided walking was not an option, so he crawled along the brook. Through a field he crawled, drinking from the stream whenever he thirsted and lying in the sun's warmth when he tired. Around dusk he came across a road lined with red imperial stone. He sat on the side and slept waiting for a passerby to find him.

When he awoke it was as if seeing through another's eyes watching his shivering beaten body being lifted into a wagon. He was taken to a village nurse miles away. For the next week she changed his bandages and administered balms and salves to ease his pains and prevent the rot.

Once the old man could again walk, she escorted him around the village, showing him the market with its fresh fish and harvest fruits, and the green where shepherds grazed their flocks. He enjoyed these walks, meeting the townsfolk and swapping old tales with his new companion. After many months the man would walk the streets unaided, taking in the smells and colors of the town and surrounding countryside. The seasons came and went with the green leaves turning to bright oranges and reds then falling to come once more.

One evening the old man walked back to the nurse's home near the town's edge. The sun had just set, and the fireflies emerged from their daily slumbers, lighting up the quiet night. As he walked down the drive, he saw the door open. Lit from within stood the old nurse waving him closer.

He limped forward toward his young wife and daughter calling him home from the war.

He trudged along toward the loving arms of his mother.

He climbed the steps, reaching a hand to the young girl.

She took it, smiling and walking him gently inside.

“Welcome.”

The old man smiled.

Ladies’ Day Out – Capital City
A BOSF / Newtown Side Story
Rachel Winterbourne sat in the small office that doubled as both administrative nook and quiet refuge above the growing bustle of Newtown’s main square. Outside, the sounds of hammering, distant laughter from the beach path, and the occasional low thrum of a shuttle engine drifted through the open window. She scrolled through her data pad, the soft blue glow illuminating the faint smile that tugged at her lips when a new message arrived.

Subject line: Ladies’ trip to the capital city
Hey Rach, Mom said we should take a trip to the capital while it is still quiet.

Rachel’s fingers hovered for a moment. Quiet. That word still felt strange after everything the Barony of the Screaming Forests had endured—Drazzen survivors, rogue columns, the long work of turning ruins into a living town, children on bicycles having fun these days. Yet the message was right. Things had settled. The auxilia under Sergeant Major Michael Sterant drilled with purpose rather than desperation. Aino Reisenkampf’s ledgers balanced more often than they panicked. Elizabeth Swallowtail’s little shop on the square was starting to look less like a scavenged storefront and more like a proper boutique. And Sergeant Lilly Bauer and Corporal Torres had finally begun to look less like soldiers waiting for the next fight and more like women who might actually have a free day.

Rachel began typing.
I like it. Quiet never lasts long around here. Let’s do it properly. Four of us, maybe five if Aino or the Sergeant Major insist on “oversight.” I’ll start the plan. Send me your free days and what you actually want to buy besides “something that isn’t utility grey.”
She hit send.
Within the hour the replies came in a flurry. Elizabeth’s was the first—enthusiastic, already listing fabric weights and the exact shade of deep forest green she wanted for a new formal jacket. Lilly’s was shorter and practical: If we’re going, I want boots that don’t feel like they were issued in the last century. And maybe something that doesn’t scream “sergeant.” Torres simply wrote: I’m in. Someone has to keep Lilly from buying only black.
Rachel leaned back, already mapping the day in her head.
The planning meeting happened the next morning in the town-hall office Aino had claimed as his own. The young administrator looked up from a stack of requisition forms as Rachel, Elizabeth, Lilly, and Torres filed in. Sergeant Major Sterant stood near the window, arms folded, expression the careful blank of a man who had survived both combat and noble politics and trusted neither completely.
“Ladies,” Aino said, standing. “Rachel mentioned a capital run. While the routes are still relatively quiet.”
Rachel set her data pad on the table. “One day. Shuttle out early, shopping, back before dark if the schedule holds. We need transport, clearance, and preferably someone who knows how to keep everyone out of trouble.”
Sterant’s mouth twitched. “I know Worlo. He can give you added protection without looking like a bodyguard.”
“You’ll speak to him?” Rachel asked.
“I will. Today.” Sterant’s tone left no room for argument. “And you’ll take a proper pilot. One of ours. Jakob Moltor has the morning run free if we clear it. He knows the capital approaches better than most of the new men.”
Elizabeth brightened. “Jakob’s solid. Quiet. Doesn’t talk over you when you’re trying to decide between two nearly identical bolts of cloth.”
Lilly snorted. “You mean he doesn’t try to ‘help’ by telling you everything looks the same.”
Torres grinned. “Exactly why we want him.”
Aino made a note. “I’ll arrange the clearance and the return window. Keep the flight under the barony’s regular supply schedule so it doesn’t raise flags. And… someone should tell Lady Winona.”
Rachel winced. “I was hoping to do that after the plan was solid.”
Too late. The door opened without a knock. Winona Staples stepped in, dark hair neatly pinned, eyes sharp with the particular maternal radar that had tracked three sons through mining colonies, academies, and now a barony. She took in the four younger women, Aino’s open ledger, and Sterant’s carefully neutral face in one sweep.
“I heard ‘capital’ and ‘ladies’ in the same sentence from three different people before breakfast,” Winona said calmly. “If the young women of Newtown are going to the capital for clothing and gifts, they will not go without a chaperone who has already survived more than one capital market day. I am coming.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth, closed it, then laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Lilly straightened almost by reflex. “We wouldn’t dream of arguing, Lady Winona.”
Winona’s smile was small but genuine. “Good. Because I already told Wirth I would be gone for the day and that the boys are not to set anything on fire in my absence. I will also be buying for Wirth, Weskal, and Wham. They grow out of everything the moment you turn your back.”
Rachel felt the last of her resistance dissolve. “Then it’s settled. Five of us. Jakob flying. Sterant’s contact for the shops. One day.”
Aino nodded. “I’ll have the shuttle pad ready at 0700.”
That evening, after the last of the day’s paperwork had been signed and the square had quieted to the soft glow of lanterns and the distant wash of the tide, Sergeant Major Michael Sterant walked the short distance from the town hall to the low building everyone simply called Checkers. It sat just off the main path, half workshop and half gathering place, where the board games were always out and the coffee was strong enough to keep a man honest. A few of the auxilia lingered at the far table, voices low. Near the front window, under the single steady lamp, Worlo sat with a half-finished game of checkers in front of him, dark coat still on, one hand resting near a cooling mug.
Sterant pulled out the opposite chair without ceremony. “You got my message.”
Worlo moved a piece, the soft click of wood on wood the only immediate answer. “I did. Capital run. Ladies of Newtown. Quiet routes.” He glanced up, eyes sharp but not unfriendly. “Lady Winona included.”
“She insisted. The rest are going for clothes and a day that doesn’t involve load-outs or ration schedules. I told them you’d arrange the shops and keep an eye without looking like a bodyguard.”
Worlo gave a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. “I’ve done quieter work for louder reasons. William already has the northern arc contacts. Three solid places—formal and day wear, outer imports, accessories. Early enough that the crowds won’t be thick.” He leaned back, studying the board for a moment before sliding another piece forward. “I’ll leave tonight. Better to be on the ground before they arrive, sort the last details with William, and meet them at the port. Cleaner that way.”
Sterant nodded once. “Jakob flying them. Morning pad at 0700. Return window before dark if the weather holds.”
“It will.” Worlo’s gaze flicked to the window, where the first stars were beginning to show above the dark line of the Screaming Forests. “Things have settled enough that a day like this can happen. Still feels strange saying it out loud.”
“Strange doesn’t mean wrong.” Sterant moved a piece of his own, the game continuing almost by habit. “They’ve earned a morning that isn’t about surviving. Keep them clear of trouble, and bring them home with whatever they decide they need.”
Worlo finished his coffee, set the mug aside, and stood. “I’ll leave within the hour. William’s expecting me. Tell Lady Winona the shops will be ready, and that I’ll be at the port when they step off.” He paused, one hand on the back of the chair. “She’s still the same, then?”
Sterant’s mouth twitched in something close to a smile. “She is. And she already knows you’ll be watching.”
Worlo gave a single nod, the kind that carried more weight than most men’s speeches, and left Checkers without another word. Outside, the night air carried the salt and sawdust scent of Newtown settling into sleep. By the time the last lights in the square dimmed, Worlo was already on the road toward the capital, coat turned up against the chill, the plan for the next day’s quiet protection already settling into place.
Dawn over Newtown was soft gold and salt air. The shuttle pad sat near the edge of the growing settlement, the white hull of the barony craft gleaming under the early light. Jakob Moltor was already there, older, steady-handed, the kind of pilot who checked every system twice and still found time to nod politely at each passenger as they boarded.
“Morning, ladies. Lady Winona,” he said. “Clearance is clean. Weather over the capital is fair. We’ll be on the ground before the markets get properly crowded if we leave on schedule.”
They settled in. Rachel took a seat near the viewport. Elizabeth sat beside her, already scrolling through a mental list of shops. Lilly and Torres claimed the seats across, boots planted, postures still half-military even on a shopping run. Winona sat near the front, hands folded, eyes already distant in the way of someone calculating sizes for three growing boys and the exact length of ribbon a certain younger Staples might need for a new formal hat.
The shuttle lifted cleanly. Newtown fell away beneath them—beach path, square, the distant dark line of the Screaming Forests—and the world became open sky and the long, familiar curve toward the capital.
Jakob kept the flight smooth. Conversation rose and fell in the cabin. Elizabeth described the new shipments that had supposedly arrived from the outer systems—silks from the eastern marches, sturdy wool blends from the highland provinces, lighter summer weaves from the coastal houses. Lilly admitted, almost sheepishly, that she wanted something that did not look like it had been issued. Torres wanted practical pieces that could still pass for civilian. Rachel wanted a few things that felt like hers rather than whatever had been scrounged or gifted in the early days of the barony.
Winona listened more than she spoke, occasionally offering a quiet correction on fabric weight or the way certain dyes held up under the capital’s climate.
Halfway through the flight Sterant’s voice came through on a private channel to Jakob, then briefly to the cabin. Worlo had confirmed. Three shops on the quieter northern arc of the capital’s textile district. One for formal and day wear, one specializing in outer-principality imports, one for accessories and the kind of small gifts that traveled well. Worlo would meet them near the shuttle port with a short list and a discreet guide if they wanted one. He had left the night before to arrange the trip in the capital city with William.
“Tell him we appreciate it,” Winona said simply.
Jakob acknowledged and returned to the controls.
The capital’s shuttle port was larger, busier, and cleaner than Newtown’s modest pad. Elizabeth’s mother was already waiting when they stepped off—tall, composed, the same sharp eyes as her daughter but tempered by years of navigating noble and near-noble circles. She embraced Elizabeth first, then offered polite, warm greetings to the others.
“Rachel. Sergeant Bauer. Corporal Torres. Lady Winona. It’s good to see you all looking like people who might actually enjoy a day rather than survive it.” She smiled. “I’ve arranged a quiet car. Worlo sent word that the shops are ready. The northern arc is less crowded this early. We can take our time.”
They moved as a group through the port and into the city proper. The capital smelled different—more stone, more refined cooking, less salt and sawdust. Buildings rose higher. The streets were cleaner. People still glanced at the Newtown party—Winona’s quiet authority, the two soldiers’ bearing, the younger women’s mix of practical and hopeful—but the glances were curious rather than hostile.
The first shop was exactly as Worlo had described: high ceilings, soft light, racks of clothing that had clearly come from across the principality. Silks in deep jewel tones. Wool that felt substantial without being heavy. Linen blends that looked as if they might survive both a formal dinner and a long walk along a beach path.
Elizabeth was in her element almost immediately. She moved between racks with the focus of someone who had spent too many months making do. Rachel followed more slowly, running her hands over fabrics, holding pieces up against herself in the mirrors. Lilly hovered near the practical section until Elizabeth gently steered her toward a softer cut of jacket in a deep charcoal that somehow managed not to look like a uniform. Torres found a set of dark trousers and a matching vest that made her look civilian without sacrificing the ease of movement she clearly still valued.
Winona shopped with quiet efficiency. She selected sturdy, well-made pieces for Wirth and Weskal—shirts, jackets, a pair of boots that looked as if they might last more than one growth spurt. For Wham she chose softer things, a little smaller, the kind of clothing a younger boy could grow into without looking swallowed.
At one point Elizabeth held up a dark green hat with a clean, slightly formal line. “For Weskal,” she said. “He needs something that isn’t a mining-colony leftover or a field cap. This will sit properly.”
Winona took it, examined the brim and the lining, and nodded once. “He’ll complain for exactly three minutes and then wear it every chance he gets. Good eye.”
They spent hours measuring, trying things on, and laughing when Lilly emerged from a fitting room looking almost startled at her own reflection in something that was neither black nor issued. Rachel found a deep blue dress that somehow managed to feel both practical and celebratory. Elizabeth selected pieces for herself and, after a quiet conversation with her mother, a few things that would travel back to Newtown as quiet gifts for the women who still worked the shops and kitchens and never asked for much.
While the others moved through the accessory racks and glove displays, Winona drifted toward a quieter corner of the third shop—an older importer’s stall that carried small, carefully made household pieces from farther afield. Unbeknownst to Worlo, and with the calm deliberation of someone who had once shared a kitchen table in another life, she selected a left-handed tea cup of fine, sturdy porcelain, the handle set precisely for a left-handed grip, and a sealed package of spiced cinnamon tea. The label still bore the old mark of Volantis, their former home not so long ago. The shopkeeper wrapped both items without comment, and Winona tucked the small parcel deep into her own bag, where it would remain unnoticed until the right moment. As she was about to exit the shop a beautiful blue men’s dress shirt caught her attention . Reaching for the shirt she just had to have it for Wirth . She turned towards the cashier .

Lunch was simple—street food from a vendor Worlo had recommended, eaten on a low wall overlooking a quieter square. Conversation turned to Newtown: the latest progress on the sawmill, the way the auxilia were starting to look less like recruits and more like a unit that belonged to the place, the small ways the town was beginning to feel like home rather than a project.
Winona listened, occasionally adding a dry observation about her sons’ latest attempts to “help” with construction or the way Wart still treated every new building as if it might need reinforcing against a siege. The younger women laughed. For a little while the capital felt less like a distant center of power and more like a place they could visit without armor.

The afternoon shops were for the finer details—gloves, scarves, small jewelry that would not look out of place in either the capital or Newtown’s growing square. Elizabeth’s mother guided them gently, steering them away from the more ostentatious houses and toward makers who still valued craft over pure display. Winona added a few more items for the boys—simple, solid things that would survive rough use and still look presentable when the occasion demanded it.

By the time they returned to the shuttle port the sun was lower. Jakob was waiting, the shuttle already pre-flighted. They loaded bags and boxes with the careful efficiency of people used to moving gear, though the cargo this time was soft rather than tactical.
Elizabeth’s mother saw them off with another round of embraces and a quiet word to Winona. “Take care of them. And of yourself. Newtown is lucky to have all of you.” And Lizzy your father sends his love .

The flight home was quieter, the cabin full of the soft rustle of new fabric and the occasional low comment about a particular purchase. Rachel sat with her data pad, already drafting a short note to Aino and Sterant that the trip had gone cleanly.

Lilly examined the new boots in the cabin light, her expression almost soft. Torres had already claimed a corner seat and was half-dozing with a new scarf draped over her knees.

Elizabeth kept glancing at the hat she had chosen for Weskal, a small, satisfied smile on her face.

Winona sat near the front again, bags at her feet, gaze on the darkening sky beyond the viewport. When Rachel caught her eye, the older woman simply nodded once—approval, fatigue, and something like quiet pride all at once. Worlo sat at the back as if he were a cloaked Royal Marine escorting a princess.
To Worlo, Winona was his princess, and the young ladies her children. Catching Worlo’s eyes, Winona smiled, and she heard a soft grunt from her old friend. The small parcel containing the left-handed tea cup and the spiced cinnamon tea from Volantis remained tucked safely among her things, still unknown to him.
Newtown’s lights appeared below them as the last of the daylight faded. Jakob brought the shuttle in smooth and steady. The pad crew was already waiting. Aino stood near the edge of the apron with Sterant, both of them looking as if they had spent the day pretending not to check the clock.
Bags were unloaded. Thanks were given. Jakob received a quiet word of appreciation from Winona and a more informal clap on the shoulder from Lilly.
As the group started toward the square, Rachel fell into step beside Elizabeth.
“Worth it?” she asked.
Elizabeth adjusted the bag that held the hat. “More than worth it. Weskal’s going to look like he belongs to something bigger than a mining claim. And the rest of us… we get to look like we belong to Newtown on purpose.”

Behind them, Winona’s voice carried calmly. “Tomorrow we sort what goes where. Tonight we eat, and then someone is going to explain to my sons why their mother returned with enough clothing to outfit a small garrison.”
Lilly laughed—the first fully unguarded sound Rachel had heard from her all day.
The square lights of Newtown welcomed them home, laden with fabric and gifts and the quiet knowledge that, for one day at least, the quiet had held long enough for the ladies of the barony to remember they were allowed to want more than survival.

And somewhere in the bags, carefully wrapped, a dark green hat waited for a certain young Staples who would complain for exactly three minutes—and then wear it like it had always been his. In another bag, still unknown to its intended recipient, rested a left-handed tea cup and a package of spiced cinnamon tea marked with the name of an old home called Volantis. And the dress shirt for Wirth to wear out for a nice dinner .
Thinking next she will need to get her love a fine suit . As one day soon he may be “ looking at Elizabeth “ at a wedding. With her mind wandering she smiles while looking at Elizabeth with her beautiful red hair .

Elizabeth and I went for our morning swim. On the beach after helping each other we tried recreating the exercise demonstrated in the competion involving Lady Cythia and the Cat Woman.

We failed greatly as we were laughing so hard. We went home and washed the salt off our bodies and got ready for work.

Went to help with a bookkeeper at the Inn today as Nico paid for his stay and many extras he wanted. He left an incredible tip for all the staff.

The bookkeeper then followed Niko to Lauries Coffee house as they will take care of their accounts also. I will be working with the group running it here and Nico. I will get the best deals for him of those things we can build in house.

We said goodbye to Nico's crew. I had so much fun while they were here. Got many photos to prove it.

We met up with the Princess and our illustrious Baron off. Right after we welcomed the rest of the research crew arriving.

The Proffesor discussed with us to start visiting the capital out talking to natural healers. Seems like Elizabeth and I will start the journey with him. I have some work to do with the General. Elizabeth will be the link between the Proffesor and other plant and healing experts.

His data collectors will be staying on the base as a staging ground.

So packing a bag with a few days change of clothing for tomorrow.

Spent the afternoon in my office. Set up Laurie's Caffee account once I received the transfer from Nico.

End of Rachel's Log

 Previous /

First

"You're not eating, Prex," Vala noted softly, setting down a tray of warm fruit. She studied his face with the sharp, effortless intuition developed over twenty years of marriage. "Did the university committee reject your research grant again?"

"No," Prex said, his voice tight as he stared at his untouched plate. He took a slow, deliberate breath and looked up. "Nira, Prexon... finish your meals. Vala, I need you in the study. Now."

Nira looked up from her terminal, an eyebrow raised in mild skepticism, while Prexon paused with a piece of fruit halfway to his mouth. Vala's eyes narrowed slightly. She didn't ask questions; the grave, hollow look in her husband's eyes told her this wasn't about academic funding.

She followed him down the narrow corridor into his private study. The moment the door slid shut, Prex engaged the manual deadbolt and activated the room's acoustic dampeners, a security measure he hadn't activated in years. The sudden, suffocating silence of the room made Vala's skin prickle.

"Prex, you're shaking," Vala said, her voice dropping to an anxious whisper. "What is going on?"

Prex didn't answer immediately. He walked to his data terminal and tapped in a complex decryption key. The screen flared to life, casting a cold, electric-blue glow across his features. On the interface sat two synchronized video files: the leaked Assaragyte footage that had thrown the sector into chaos, and Captain Threl's unedited, high-resolution sensor logs from the Silent Explorer.

"Watch," Prex choked out, stepping aside.

Vala stepped forward, her eyes scanning the dual feeds. For three agonizing minutes, the quiet of the study was broken only by the ambient hum of the recordings. She watched laughter between three diverse species. She watched Vixtar engineers standing side by side with those species in quiet camaraderie. She watched the undeniable, raw truth unfold in perfect synchronization.

When the footage ended, Vala took a step back, her hand covering her mouth. Her eyes were wide with a terror that went bone-deep.

"The High Emissary..." she breathed, her voice trembling. "Prex... just having this data on your terminal is a death sentence. If the Ministry of Information finds out, that's it for us."

"They will," Prex interrupted gently, closing the distance between them and taking her hands in his. "Eventually, they will track the encrypted ping back to this node. But I can't just delete it, Vala. I can't look at our children and raise them in a society built on a foundation of manufactured genocide. Threl gave me a way out, a way to blow this wide open and keep us safe."

He rapidly explained Threl's plan: the time-delayed broadcast, the fabricated family vacation, and the promise of absolute asylum on the human colony of Terixa.

Vala pulled her hands away, pacing the small room. "Terixa? Prex, humans are apex predators! They don't understand us. They look at our pair-bonds and see cold logic, and they think because we don't share physical desire, we don't feel love. They think we are incapable of true loyalty!"

"Let them think what they want!" Prex pleaded, stepping into her path and taking her hands back into his, feeling the familiar, steady pulse of her palm, the same resonance that had anchored him for twenty years. "Human passion is a flash fire, Vala. Ours is forged in the mind. I didn't bind my life to yours for biology; I bound it because my soul doesn't function without yours. If the humans cannot comprehend a love built on true mental unity rather than instinct, that is their limitation, not ours."

Vala shook her head, looking at him with desperate hesitation. "And you'd trust those monsters with our children's lives?"

"Who says they're the monsters?" Prex urged, pointing a shaking finger back at the terminal. "The same Ministry that told us the Assaragytes were mindless beasts? Look at the logs, Vala! The humans took them in. They gave them sanctuary. Threl trusts them with his life, and I trust Threl with ours."

Vala stopped pacing. She looked at the terminal, then at the locked door separating them from their children, and finally back to her husband. The sheer weight of the decision pressed down on her, threatening to crush the life they had painstakingly built. But beneath the fear, the same stubborn moral clarity that had drawn her to Prex decades ago began to harden her resolve.

She closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering exhale. When she opened them, the panic was gone, replaced by a grim, terrifying bravery.

"Vanya-4," Vala said quietly.

Prex blinked, caught off guard. "What?"

"It's a high-gravity resort planet," Vala explained, stepping briskly up to the console. "We tell the kids we secured standard family clearance permits this morning. Seven days of rest, no terminals, no academic reviews. It's the perfect cover for a sudden departure."

Relief washed over Prex so forcefully his knees nearly buckled. He pulled her into a tight, desperate embrace, burying his face in her shoulder. "Thank you," he whispered.

"Don't thank me yet," Vala murmured, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye. "Set the broadcast timer. I'll pack the kids myself, tell them to bring only what they can't stand to lose. Canopy pools don't need luggage. We leave on the evening transport."

Nira raised an eyebrow when her mother told her to leave her data-tablet behind and bring the carved wooden bird her grandmother had given her instead. Prexon just shrugged and grabbed the model glider he'd built with his uncle, more amused than curious. Neither of them thought to ask why.

Three hours later, inside his private study, Prex stood before his data terminal with Vala at his side. On the interface sat the two locked, explosive files: the leaked Assaragyte footage and Captain Threl's unedited, high-resolution holovids from the Silent Explorer. Together, they were an undeniable, two-sided demolition charge aimed directly at the High Emissary's foundational lies.

His hands shook as he configured the Quantum Encryption Controller. He routed the transmission through six secondary academic relays, nodes typically reserved for peer-reviewed journal distributions, and applied an automated execution script.

AUTOMATED BROADCAST TIMER: ACTIVATED DELAY: 72:00:00

Prex hovered his thumb over the execution key. Once pressed, the countdown would be irreversible. Seventy-two hours from this exact second, the files would broadcast automatically across all of Orixa and its territories.

By then, if their flight schedule held, he and his family would already be off Orixa, safely landed on Vanya-4, and boarding an unsanctioned, long-range transport bound for the Outer Rim and Terixa.

You don't need to be a soldier, Prex, Threl's words echoed in his mind. You just need to be fast.

With Vala holding his hand, Prex pressed the key.

The timer began to tick down in silent, glowing red numbers: 71:59:59.

He wiped the terminal clean, powered down the console, and walked out of his office, leaving behind his life's work and the only home he had ever known.

The seventy-two hours passed in a surreal blur of starport security checkpoints, baggage scans, and the low, rhythmic thrum of sub-light engines.

When the timer hit zero, the Prex family was sitting in a quiet, open-air café overlooking the shimmering glass flora of Vanya-4. Prex sat rigid, his hands clasped tightly around a cup of cooling tea, staring at his personal datapad. Their unlicensed Outer Rim transport was scheduled to leave from the lower berths in a few short hours.

Suddenly, the public holoscreens lining the resort promenade flickered, cutting away from mindless commercials to stark, unedited reality.

Images filled the massive displays: Assaragytes, Vixtar, and Humans interacting peacefully alongside Terixa's native fauna. Footage played of Vixtar and Assaragytes floating side by side in therapy pools, sharing rations, and honoring each other's fallen.

A collective gasp echoed across the promenade. Hundreds of vacationing Vixtar froze in their tracks, staring up at the screens in utter disbelief. The foundational mythology of their entire civilization was unraveling in real time.

Beside him, Vala's hand tightened around her cup. She didn't gasp; she had known precisely what was coming. Her eyes left the screens and met her husband's pale face.

"It has begun," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the rising tide of shock sweeping through the crowd.

Prex's heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, but he forced himself to move with deliberate calm. He stood up, hoisting their travel bags, and placed a guiding hand on his children's shoulders.

"Keep walking and don't stare at the screens," he instructed Nira and Prexon in a tight whisper, herding them through the stunned crowd. "We have to reach the lower spaceport. Now."

The lower berths of the Vanya-4 starport were cold, damp, and smelled heavily of unrefined sub-light fuel. Away from the glowing promenade and the screaming crowds staring at the holoscreens, the reality of what they were doing finally caught up to them.

Prex pulled Nira and Prexon into a secluded maintenance nook behind a stack of cargo crates.

"We have a shuttle booked for Thursday!" Prexon demanded, his voice cracking with a mix of fear and rising fury. "You're telling me we're not going home?! My project's due Monday! Everything I own is in my room!"

"Prexon, quiet," Vala warned softly, though her own hands were trembling.

"No!" Nira snapped, crossing her arms, tears of frustration welling in her eyes. "You said this was a vacation! I was supposed to meet Lira at the archives on Monday! You lied to us!"

Prex dropped to one knee so he was at eye level with both of them. He didn't offer a gentle academic explanation. He looked at them with raw, unvarnished honesty.

"I did lie," Prex said, his voice quiet, thick with emotion. "We aren't going back home. Not today. Probably not ever."

The anger in Prexon's face flared into pure outrage. "You can't just ruin our lives! What about our friends?! What about everything we own?!"

"I know," Prex whispered, taking the full force of his son's rage without flinching. "You have every right to be furious with me. I took away your home, your friends, and your safety without asking you. But if we went back, they would arrest us. Because the man who leaked those video files, the man who just exposed the government on every screen on Vanya-4, was me."

Silence fell over the small nook, heavy and suffocating.

Nira stared at her father, her mouth slightly open. She looked at the datapad in his hand, then up at his exhausted, terrified face. The outrage on Prexon's face faltered, replaced by a stunned, disbelieving shock.

"You... you did that?" Nira breathed.

"I had to," Prex said gently. "I couldn't let you grow up in a world built on blood and lies. But being a party to the truth comes at a cost. We are refugees now. We are leaving for a colony called Terixa."

Vala stepped forward, resting a hand on Prex's shoulder and looking down at her children. "We can't go back for your things." She nodded at the packs slung over their shoulders. "But you already have the one thing you couldn't live without. I made sure of that, three days ago."

Nira's hand went to the strap of her pack, to the shape of the wooden bird wrapped inside her shirt. Understanding broke slowly across her face. "That's why you..."

"Yes," Vala said quietly.

She pulled her own data-tablet from her bag and held it out. "You'll have to share this one. We've got a day, maybe two, before we cross the outer boundary and lose the relay. Write to your friends. Say whatever you need to say. Tell them you love them. Tell them goodbye. We'll send it as an encrypted burst before we are out of range."

She pulled out two blank data-slate cards and handed them over.

Prexon looked down at the blank slate in his hand, his chest heaving as he fought back tears. The anger hadn't vanished, the grief of losing his world was too real, but looking at his father, a new, heavy understanding settled into his eyes. His father wasn't a coward running away. He was a man who had challenged an empire to protect them.

The delay had expired. The truth was out. And now began the most perilous leg of their journey: a desperate voyage through the stars toward Terixa, knowing the full might of the High Emissary would soon be hunting the man who shattered their grand illusion.

Back on Orixa, panic paralyzed the High Council.

Even councilors who didn't fully grasp the technical validity of the leaked footage watched in horror as their superiors began screaming impossible, frantic commands: "Cut the broadcast feeds! Erase the video from every node! Bring me the person who did this in a box!"

None of it was possible. The information wasn't sitting on a central server; it was propagating across millions of personal datapads. The transmission was playing on a perpetual loop on virtually every public and private media channel.

For six Orixan years, Dr. Zacorda had been stripped of his tenure, evicted from the Institute of Astro-Sociology, and relegated to low-bandwidth pirate streams broadcast from a cramped apartment in Orixa's lower sectors. To the mainstream media, he was the resident crackpot, the disgraced academic who claimed the High Emissary's war campaign was built on fabricated border clashes.

Now, his terminal interface was melting down under a tidal wave of incoming connections.

The viewer counter on his black-market feed wasn't just climbing; it was compounding exponentially: fifty thousand... two million... forty million.

"I told you," Zacorda muttered into his audio-pickup, his voice a wild mix of bitter vindication and absolute dread. He leaned in close to the lens, unwashed and exhausted, pointing a trembling finger at his dual-monitor display. "Look at the timestamps! I've been screaming about those missing three minutes of orbital telemetry for four years! They didn't classify it to protect military secrets, they classified it because the Assaragytes weren't attacking! They were attempting to establish direct communications!"

In the comment streams rolling beneath his feed, the old slurs and mockery had vanished, replaced by a frantic wall of text:

"IS THIS REAL?" "EMISSARY FEED JUST WENT DARK IN SECTOR 4!" "WHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS RAW TELEMETRY?" "THEY LIED TO US ABOUT THE CASUALTIES!"

"Don't look at me for answers now," Zacorda said, a harsh, breathless laugh escaping his throat as distant police sirens began to wail through the streets outside his apartment window. "Ask the High Council. Ask the High Emissary. Because for the first time in our history... the crazy old man in Sector 9 isn't the one lying to you."

The true undoing of the regime didn't happen in a government hall or a grand military war room. It happened in an unmonitored, open-source relay room hosted on a neutral deep-space node, a digital common space where independent researchers, rogue academics, and everyday citizens dropped raw files and eyewitness accounts anonymously.

No single person held the full picture, but together, they held every piece of the puzzle.

A former Orixian logistics clerk uploaded requisition orders showing entire shipments of atmospheric scrubbers logged as "destroyed in enemy action," when orbital manifests proved they had never left the depot.

A retired Assaragyte communications technician dropped a series of intercepted high-frequency transmissions from three cycles prior. For years, she had assumed they were corrupted sensor noise; placed alongside Zacorda's exposed orbital timestamps, they weren't noise at all. They were automated jamming pulses designed specifically to prevent ships from both species from establishing direct radio contact during chance encounters.

Data analysts, translators, and crowd-sourced codebreakers from both species worked in real time, stitching the fragmented data into a single, cohesive timeline. The picture that emerged was devastating:

Manufactured Scarcity: Neither world was running out of vital resources. Both governments had been systematically throttling supply lines and hoarding raw feedstock to maintain artificial crises, blaming the resulting shortages on "enemy raids."

Staged Skirmishes: Border clashes that had cost thousands of lives were strictly scheduled. Cross-referencing shared ship telemetry proved that whenever public unrest or political opposition peaked on either homeworld, an "unprovoked border incident" was staged to force the populace back into line.

Shared Deception: The High Council of Orixa and the ruling High Emissary weren't just fighting the Assaragytes, they were actively coordinating with key leadership elements on the Assaragyte side. The war was never meant to be won; it was engineered to be eternal, keeping both populations controlled, terrified, and obedient.

When an Orixian scholar and an Assaragyte archivist finally established a live, unencrypted audio link across the void, the dialogue was brief, raw, and chilling:

"They told us your fleets burned our primary farming domes," the Assaragyte translator output read.

"They told us the exact same thing about ours," replied the Orixian. "Look at the solar arrays in the background of your Sector 4 logs... those aren't tactical orbital strikes. Those are targeted demolitions executed by your own planetary defense forces."

A profound silence hung across the light-years connecting their terminals. The conspiracy wasn't just a corruption of the system, it was the system. And now that the truth was laid bare for billions to see, the authority of two star-spanning governments began to crumble from within.

The response from the ruling elites was neither a denial nor a press release. It was an execution order.

Within hours, a secure, military-encrypted quantum link opened between the highest military directors of Orixa and the senior command of the Assaragyte High Directorate. For thirty years, their propaganda machines had painted each other as irredeemable monsters. But faced with total institutional collapse, their shared instinct for self-preservation instantly bridged the light-years.

A consensus was reached in less than three minutes: Terixa had to burn.

It didn't matter that Terixa was a neutral colony housing thousands of civilians, scientists, and refugees from both sides. To the High Council and the Directorate, every soul on that planet was a witness to an existential truth.

By nightfall, two separate war fleets broke orbit from their respective home systems.

From the north, five heavy Vixtar dreadnoughts dropped their camouflage fields and aligned their jump drives. From the south, a striking force of Assaragyte orbital siege ships ignited their engines. Their orders contained no room for negotiation, no capture protocols, and no terms of surrender:

TARGET: Terixa System OBJECTIVE: Total Orbital Bombardment RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: Zero Exceptions. Complete Sterilization.

As the two hostile fleets converged on the same spatial coordinates, they weren't marching into battle against each other. For the first time in history, Vixtar and Assaragyte warships were flying in tight formation, a silent, terrifying coalition sent to silence the truth before it could dismantle their empires.

High above Terixa, emergency long-range sensor arrays picked up the massive spatial distortions of incoming jump signatures. Warning sirens blared across the colony's surface.

The two-week warning they had anticipated was gone. Space ruptured, and the combined fleet dropped out of warp directly above the atmosphere. The admirals prepared to give the catastrophic command to cleanse the world below.

But what the ruling elites on both home worlds had overlooked was a simple, fundamental truth: an empire's military is not built of cold, calculating machinery, it is built of people.

For weeks, whispers and rumors had echoed through the mess halls, engineering decks, and lower quarters of every warship in the fleet. The lower-deck crews had seen the leaked feeds. They had parsed the common-room data. They knew the truth, even if their commanding officers refused to speak it aloud.

Up on the bridge, the fleet admirals had been bought off easily enough with promises of fast-tracked promotions and administrative power. To them, wiping out Terixa was simply a necessary logistical cleanup.

But as the joint armada assumed high orbit above Terixa, the illusion completely shattered for the junior officers and enlisted personnel. Standing at their navigation and weapons consoles, young Vixtar bridge officers looked out through the reinforced viewports and saw the impossible: Assaragyte orbital siege ships gliding through space alongside their own heavy dreadnoughts, locking their weapons onto the exact same civilian target.

For thirty years, they had been taught that the Assaragytes were bloodthirsty monsters. Now, they were flying wing to wing with them to murder innocent civilians.

The firing codes were transmitted from the high command. Targeting reticles locked onto Terixa's atmosphere.

All across the fleet, fingers hovered over the firing keys. Sweating, trembling, and looking to their crewmates for answers, the junior officers faced an agonizing choice: obey an illegal order to murder millions of innocent citizens, or commit treason by refusing the command of their admirals.

The High Emissary and the High Council had assumed their soldiers would obey without question. They were about to learn how wrong they were. But the spark of rebellion needed a trigger, and how Terixa responded in these first crucial minutes would determine whether the fleet fired, or turned their guns back on their commanders.

Since the last attack all as been quiet.

We are still backing up the patrols. One big difference as been quiet patrols of routes the pirates have been taking. Instead of mines we have been leaving behind censors.

Our sister ship took over from us for 4 days. We finally had a few days off on ship and so did our escorts.

On all tablets a message appeared.

"All crew are to attend a briefing in common rooms. All on duty personnel are to attend at 1800 hours. Those that cannot attend in "rec" rooms are to attend via tablet.

When the briefing started in full uniform was the admiral now in charge of our small fleet. The General in charge of all ground troops. Commander in charge of all pilots. 2 Major in charge of intelligence and logistics and a Captain Caldwell in charge of this Outpost regularly. Caldwell spoke first.

"On behalf of the staff of the station I would like to thank all the support we received from your fleet. Attacks numbers are down and our pilots are now better trained.. I am handing you to Major Pain which as intelligence to share."

Major Pain spoke next. "Thanks to prisoners we captured and intelligence gathered through our operatives and devices we first discovered the Pirate mother ship and a good idea where the pirates have their base.

The mothership ressuplies at an abandoned mining station. It is believed a bunch of prisoners are held here..." an image of a Mining station appeared. "The pirates attack the stations and drop off all stolen goods and prisoners to their planet base." Images from space zoomed in on a fair size city. "From the planet the stolen goods are sold or traded and the Mothership returns to the abandoned mining station."

"I now pass you to the Admiral for her to explain our attack plans." He gave her a salute.

The admiral made the map bigger showing both the planet and Pirate mining station on the screens.

"Our escort ship will set up a communication screen between the mining station and the planet. Our pilots will destroy any defense towers and drop Haywire on the mother ship and mining station. The General and ground troops will take over the station and ship.

The fighters will patrol and make sure no ship or escape pod escapes. Once the Station is secured we will move to the planet and put it under seige.

A support fleet arrived last night. All support ships will be stationed in a close by mining station occupied by us. Our attack fleet should have enough supplies on board to siege and defend ourselves for minimum a month. All logistic officers should submit a list by tomorrow. "

The Admiral handed it over to the general of the ground troops.

"All ground assault troops will rest today having trained for 4 days." Clean and get your gear ready as you will be very busy for a month."

The Admiral spoke again. "No letters, calls or communication is banned until further notice for Security reasons. Just to remind you all this is Top Secret to be successfully and eliminate any intelligence leaks."

The meeting ended and we all looked at each other in surprise.

The Pioneering project:
By 2678, the Alpha Centauri settlements had stabilized enough for the Commonwealth to authorize the next long push. The target was Epsilon Eridani, a younger K-type star roughly 10.5 light-years from Sol, no Abyssal Gateway yet existed at the far end, therefore the first expedition could not simply Drop into the system, a receiving station and micro-wormhole had to be physically established first. This required a rare and dangerous hybrid mission: a normal-space burn of unprecedented length, followed by the opening of a new abyssal lane.

primary vessels were the. C.S.S Cradle of intent a Deliverance Class colony ship, A massive spin-gravity vessel carrying the first wave of permanent settlers, habitat modules, atmospheric processors, and seed banks. Her great rotating sections provided the only continuous gravity for the civilian complement during the long cruise.

C.S.S Behemoth a Leviathan Class heavy hauler, An enormous cargo carrier tasked with bulk industrial equipment, prefabricated station components, reactor cores, and the structural members for the future Epsilon Eridani gateway station, her holds were largely zero-g; crew and critical personnel lived in smaller spinning modules or under thrust when the ship burned, and It has large radiator towers to help cool down to the engines working harder on cargo hauler.

D.F.S Vulcan a Charon Class heavy transit tender, The military backbone of the expedition. In addition to her normal role as a Drop-capable ferryman, she had been fitted for extended independent operations, three escort frigates were hard-docked to her lattice for the entire outward journey, their crews and supplies living under the Charon’s protection, these frigates carried the specialized gateway construction packages, pre-charted curtains, and the micro-wormhole initiator that would eventually open the receiving end of the new Abyssal route.

Because no receiving gateway existed, the entire formation had to travel the majority of the distance under continuous or staged thrust in normal space. This was the most grueling part of the mission.
The Cradle of intent maintained spin gravity for her colonists throughout. The Leviathan and Charon spent long periods under low, sustained acceleration, giving their crews a thin but constant “down.” When the engines cut for course corrections or coasting along, the ships returned to freefall. Docked frigates experienced the same cycle: thrust-weight, then weightlessness, then thrust-weight again. The psychological strain was considerable, months of alternating gravity and freefall, the knowledge that no rapid Abyss escape existed yet, and the sheer isolation tested every soul aboard. Chaplains and Current Readers (even though there were no currents to read yet) held regular services that mixed the Litany of the Crossing with classical invocations to the saints and god for the long voyage.

The shuttle's clamps released with a shudder Flo felt in her teeth, and then she was floating.

Out of the shuttle and into Scotty's Dilemma and the chaos of its hanger. Next stop: The Kuiper Belt.

She'd read the specs. A repurposed mining vessel, converted to troop transport eleven months ago when the shipyards realized they didn't have enough hulls and didn't have enough time. The bones of the thing still showed. The support struts too thick for a passenger ship. Conduit runs exposed where someone hadn't bothered to panel them over. Somewhere in the guts, mining drones nobody had gotten around to stripping out still sat in their berths, waiting for rock that would never come.

She caught a handhold without looking for it, muscle memory doing the work her eyes didn't need to. Around her, the shuttle's other passengers were not doing the same.

A kid, nineteen, maybe twenty, fresh in his fatigue’s duffel-carrying posture, drifted past her sideways, arms wheeling, mouth open in a small round shape of pure animal alarm. He hit the wall with his shoulder and rebounded, slower this time, and grabbed at nothing. Behind him, a woman was retching into her own hand, trying to keep it contained and failing. The smell of it was already spreading, thin and sour, catching in the recycled air.

Flo didn't watch. She'd seen it before. First zero-g always went one of two ways, you either found your body's new grammar in about four seconds, or you fought it for a week and lost every round.

Her HUD painted a soft blue line along the corridor wall, arcing toward the crew section, adjusting in real time as bodies crossed through it. She followed the line and didn't correct for the boy who caromed off her hip, didn't slow for the sergeant near the junction bellowing instructions that nobody was hearing over their own nausea. She'd learned a long time ago that you moved with intention or you got swallowed by the current. There was no room here for anything in between.

The corridor narrowed. Original mining-vessel proportions, she guessed, built for machines and cargo, not for two hundred human bodies at once. Her shoulder brushed a conduit housing warm to the touch. The air had a mechanical taste, metal and ozone and, underneath it now, vomit.

She passed a woman crying without sound, just tears breaking off her face in slow beads that caught the light before drifting away. Flo logged the face, didn't know the name yet, and kept moving. Not her problem. Not today. Her problem was six names on a manifest and one hour to make them into something that wouldn't get themselves killed.

The blue line turned, dropped her through a hatch with a lip she cleared without touching, and there it was.

Squad Bay 4-C.

The room was smaller than her quarters back at the depot on Ceres, and she'd have called those cramped. Eight bunks, stacked in twos against opposite walls, close enough that a broad-shouldered man would have to turn sideways to change between them. A fold-down table bolted to the floor. A single strip of light along the ceiling, buzzing faintly, the kind of buzz that would be the only sound in this room for the next fourteen hours before the burn and probably every hour after it that mattered.

It smelled like hot metal and cleaning solvent that hadn't quite won the fight against something older.

Flo caught the frame of the hatch and pulled herself through, oriented herself to what would be "up" once thrust kicked in, and found the wall panel. Her palm print unlocked the bunk assignments. Seven names bloomed onto the small display, cross-referenced against her HUD.

FLORENCIA VARGA — SERGEANT— BUNK 1 

JACKSON, DYSON. — BUNK 2 

DELILAH OKONKWO-REYES ("DEE") — BUNK 3 

CADE WASHINGTON — BUNK 4 

FOX, THORTON. — BUNK 5 

SASHA ADEYEMI — BUNK 6 

SAWYER, REEVES. — BUNK 7

Seven names. Six people to learn and lead.

She anchored herself near the table and waited. She was good at waiting. Thirty-three years old and this was her first deployment, and if anyone found that strange, they hadn't said it to her face. Twelve years in uniform, all of it training other people's replacements, running drills nobody thought would matter, until suddenly they did. She'd earned her rank the slow way. She intended to spend it carefully.

The first one through the hatch was a giant. He came through, folded nearly in half to fit, and even then his shoulder scraped the frame, a big man, all of him solid, moving through zero-g with more care than skill but managing it anyway, hand over hand along the same holds she'd used.

"Cade Washington," he said, before she asked. Deep voice, rounded at the edges, like a man who'd learned a long time ago not to let his size come first into a room. "Bunk four, I'm guessing."

"You guessed right." She watched him find it, watched him set his single duffel into the storage net beside it with unhurried hands. No wasted motion, but no urgency either. A man who'd decided, somewhere along the way, that panic cost more than it bought.

The next two came through together, and she knew before her HUD confirmed it that this was going to be the pairing that mattered.

The man came first, pulling himself along the hold rail with a loose, showy carelessness that told her he'd practiced looking unbothered more than he'd practiced actually being unbothered. Wiry. Underfed in a way that had nothing to do with rations, the kind of leanness that came from years of going without and calling it a choice.

JACKSON, D. — twenty-nine, her display told her, though he looked like he'd lived rougher years than that.

"This the shoebox?" he said, to no one, grinning at the room like it owed him an apology. His eyes found Flo last, drifted over her rank insignia, and didn't change. "Sarge."

"Bunk two," Flo said. Didn't ask his name. She didn't need to pretend she didn’t know it.

He didn't answer. Just kept drifting, slow, unbothered, past bunk two like it was a suggestion rather than an order.

The woman behind him was smaller, quicker, dark hair pulled back tight, and she moved through the zero-g like she resented having to think about it at all, economical, a little too fast, correcting hard when she overshot. DELILAH OKONKWO-REYES. Dee, the manifest noted, in the kind of parenthetical that meant somebody far above Flo's pay grade had already learned better than to use her full name.

"Bunk three," Flo said.

Dee found it without comment, without even glancing at Jackson, though the set of her jaw said she'd clocked exactly where he was and exactly what he wasn't doing.

Flo watched that. Filed it.

The last three came in close together, young, all of them, in the particular way that had nothing to do with age. A thin boy with sharp eyes who found his bunk without being told, checked the number twice against something on his own private display, and said nothing at all. FOX, T. Eighteen. He looked like he was doing math the whole time, and maybe he was.

A young woman moved with a straightness to her spine that no zero-g disorientation seemed to touch, though Flo could see the tightness at the corners of her eyes, the specific look of someone holding a great deal very still. SASHA ADEYEMI. Nineteen. She found bunk six, secured her gear with the crisp motions of someone who'd been shown, at some point, by someone who loved her, exactly how a soldier was supposed to move. Whether she believed it yet was a different question.

The last was easy in his body in a way none of the others quite managed, tall, loose-limbed, drifting through the zero-g like he'd been born half-expecting it. SAWYER, R. Twenty-one. He grinned at the room like it was a mildly interesting bar he'd wandered into.

"This the whole crew?" he said, settling toward bunk seven. "Feels like we're missing somebody dramatic."

"You're looking at her," Cade said, mild, nodding toward Flo, and a couple of the younger ones laughed, thin, nervous laughs, the kind that came out before anyone decided whether it was safe to.

Flo didn't laugh. Didn't scowl either. Let the moment pass through her without asking it to be anything.

"Sergeant Varga," she said, to the room. "You'll call me Sergeant, or ma'am. Bunks are assigned. Not negotiable, not preference-based, not first-come. You'll learn why later, but for now: it's assigned because I said it's assigned."

She let that sit a second.

"Burn's in under an hour. Fourteen hours under acceleration, sedated the whole way. When you wake up, we'll be across the Kuiper Belt and meeting our new neighbours. That starts with small things. Bunks first."

Sasha nodded, once, sharp. Fox didn't move, but she caught the flick of his eyes toward Jackson's bunk, the only one still empty of its assigned occupant.

Jackson had drifted to the far wall, near bunk seven, arms crossed loosely, watching Dee unpack with an expression that had already decided on its next move.

"Bunk two's open," Flo said, not raising her voice.

"I can see that," Jackson said. Amiable. Unbothered. "Just stretching my legs first, Sarge. Ship's tiny. Man needs a minute."

Nobody laughed this time.

It didn't take long. Flo had known it wouldn't. She'd read the file, the same file that told her Jackson had washed out of two prior assignments for insubordination, that told her the language "poor fit for structured environments" was doing a great deal of polite work, and she'd known the shape of what would happen before it happened, the way you know a storm is coming from the color of the light.

Jackson pushed off the wall, drifted close to bunk three, and hooked a lazy hand on the frame above Dee's head.

"You washed out of pilot school," he said, conversational, like he was asking about the weather. "Heard that from a guy on the shuttle. Said you couldn't take orders from a computer. That true?"

Dee didn't look up from the strap she was tightening. "Move."

"I'm not in your way."

"You're in my air."

"That's a poetic way to tell a guy to fuck off." He grinned, wider now, warming to it. "I get it, though. Must sting. Washing out. Bet you thought you were gonna fly something. Now you're stuck in a can with the rest of us, going wherever the grown-ups point it."

Dee's hands stopped moving.

Flo watched from across the small room, anchored at the table, and did not move yet. This was the part that mattered, not the provocation, which was cheap and easy to see coming, but the window. There would be a window, narrow and specific, where the room decided what kind of unit it was going to be. She needed to see exactly where that window was before she used it.

"Say it again," Dee said, low.

"Say what again?" Jackson's voice hadn't changed at all, and that, Flo noted, was its own kind of tell. A man who baited people for a living learned to keep his own voice flat while everyone else's climbed. "I'm just making conversation, sweetheart. First day. Bonding."

"Don't call me that."

"What, sweetheart? Washout?"

Dee came off the bunk in one motion, fast enough that she overcorrected in the zero-g and had to catch herself against the frame, which somehow made it worse, made her face go tighter with fury at her own body's betrayal on top of his. She was smaller than him by a head, but there was nothing hesitant in the way she closed the distance.

"Say it to my face and not sideways like a coward."

"I'm looking right at you." Jackson didn't back up. Didn't square up either, he kept his hands loose at his sides, kept that same easy grin, and Flo understood, watching it, that this was the whole architecture of the man: he never threw the first punch, never had to, because he'd learned exactly how to make someone else want to.

"Hey." Cade's voice, low and even, from over by bunk four. Not sharp. A man trying to lower the temperature of a room by lowering his own. "Not worth it."

Neither of them looked at him.

"You gonna hit me?" Jackson said to Dee, softer now, almost gentle, almost kind, which was somehow the cruelest register he'd used yet. "Go on. Everybody's watching. Show the Sarge what you’ve got."

Sasha had gone very still in her bunk. Fox's eyes moved between Jackson and Dee with the flat, assessing look of someone running probabilities. Sawyer had stopped unpacking entirely.

Dee's hand closed into a fist.

Flo moved.

She didn't remember drawing the sidearm so much as she noticed, after the fact, that it was already in her hand, that was how the years of drilling were supposed to work, that was the whole point of them, the body doing the thing the mind had rehearsed ten thousand times until rehearsal and instinct became indistinguishable. She heard the small definite click of the selector rolling to stun, a sound so familiar it barely registered as sound at all, more like a change in the room's air pressure.

She didn't announce it. Didn't say a word of warning.

She shot Jackson in the center of his chest.

He didn't even finish his sentence. Whatever he'd been about to say collapsed into a small surprised exhale, and then his whole body went loose all at once, the particular total slackness of a man whose nervous system had just been told to stop asking questions. He drifted, slow and boneless, and hit the wall with a soft thud that was somehow louder than anything else that had happened in the room.

Silence. Total and sudden, the buzzing ceiling light the only sound left.

Dee's fist was still raised at nothing. She looked at Jackson's drifting body, then at Flo, and something in her face, the anger, the readiness, didn't disappear so much as fold itself away, fast, like a hand caught reaching for something it shouldn't.

Flo holstered the weapon. Her hand hadn't shaken at all, and she was distantly aware that some of the others were looking at that as much as they were looking at Jackson.

"Cade," she said. "Get him strapped into two."

Cade was already moving, no hesitation, gathering Jackson's slack weight with an easy competence that told Flo more about him than a week of drills could have. He guided the unconscious man into bunk two, cinched the restraints with quick sure hands, checked the man's breathing with two fingers at his throat, and nodded once to himself, satisfied.

"He'll be groggy when he wakes," Flo said, to the room generally, not to any one of them. "Stun does that. He'll be fine by the time we're out of the burn."

Nobody asked her why she'd done it. Nobody asked if it was necessary, or fair, or if there'd been another way. She watched the question not get asked and understood that this, more than the shot itself, was the actual outcome she'd needed.

Dee had lowered her fist. She was looking at bunk two, at Jackson's slack unconscious face, with an expression Flo couldn't fully read, something between vindication and a kind of shame that had nowhere to go.

"He was baiting me," Dee said, to Flo, low. Not quite an apology. Not quite one.

"I know."

"You didn't stun me."

"No," Flo said. "I didn't."

She let that be the whole explanation. She'd learned that too, somewhere in twelve years of watching other officers over-explain themselves into looking weak. The decision was the message. Anything more was noise.

Fox, from his bunk, said quietly, almost to himself: "Efficient."

Sasha didn't say anything at all, but Flo saw her spine straighten another degree, saw something in her face settle, like a held breath finally let go.

Sawyer let out a low whistle. "Remind me not to piss off the Sarge."

"Get settled and have something to eat," Flo said. "Burn's soon."

The alert came sooner than she'd told them it would, she'd shaved the estimate on purpose, a small dishonesty in the service of readiness, because a squad that thought it had more time than it did would always waste the difference. The intercom crackled to life with a voice flattened by a hundred identical announcements before this one.

"All personnel, secure for acceleration burn. T-minus twelve minutes. Repeat, secure for acceleration burn."

The room went from silence to scrambling in about two seconds.

It was, Flo thought, almost exactly as bad as she'd expected. Sawyer got one arm through his restraint and then couldn't find the second buckle, twisting to look for it and making the whole rig worse. Fox had his figured out almost immediately, he read the mechanism once, understood it, done,  and lay there with the particular stillness of someone waiting for everyone else to catch up. Sasha's hands moved fast and sure, but Flo caught the way her breath had gone shallow, the discipline holding the fear at a fixed and manageable distance rather than removing it.

Dee dropped into bunk three and fought her own restraint straps with short, furious motions until Cade, already secured in four, said, low and unhurried, "Left one first. It's backwards from what you'd think."

She looked at him like she wanted to argue on principle, then didn't, and it worked.

Flo moved between them where she could, not fixing things so much as making her presence a kind of ballast, checking Sawyer's second buckle herself with two efficient motions, nodding once to Sasha in a way that wasn't quite reassurance but was adjacent to it, glancing at Jackson's restraints where Cade had already secured them, still slack-faced and out.

She found her own bunk last. Bunk one. The seat had a temperature to it, not quite body heat, something manufactured to feel like readiness. She settled into it and felt it begin, almost immediately, to shift beneath her, the material reading her shape, molding itself along her spine and shoulders and the backs of her thighs with a pressure that was not painful, only total, like being held by something that had no intention of letting go.

"T-minus five minutes. Sedation will initiate automatically at burn commencement. Remain still."

She looked across the narrow room. Jackson, slack and out, oblivious to all of it. Cade, eyes closed, breathing slow and deliberate, a man managing himself the way he probably managed a great many things. Dee, jaw tight, staring at the ceiling like she could argue with it. Fox, watching everything with that same flat assessing calm. Sasha, lips moving faintly, a prayer, maybe, or a count, or a name. Sawyer, oddly, smiling faintly at nothing, the specific ease of a man who had never yet had a reason to be afraid of anything and hadn't quite absorbed that this might be the first one.

She felt the seat's restraint mechanism find the base of her neck. A small cold pressure. The needle, when it came, didn't hurt so much as it arrived, a fact more than a sensation, a small definite intrusion and then a spreading warmth that had nothing warm about what it was actually doing to her.

"T-minus one minute."

Her limbs were already going distant, the seat's molded pressure the last clear thing she could feel, the room starting to soften at its edges the way a photograph softens when you've looked at it too long.

Six new faces. One her own hand had put to sleep for her, and the rest already half under it besides. Fourteen days induced coma, and somewhere at the end of that dark, the first real military action in a hundred and fifty-four years..

She thought, with the last clean edge of a mind about to go under: What are we flying into.

It wasn't a question she expected an answer to. There wasn't time for one, and even if there had been, she doubted she'd have liked it.

The dark came up from beneath her like water rising in a hold, and she went under without a sound, and then there was nothing at all.

Abyss transit is never a simple jump. It is a controlled descent into a higher-dimensional substrate, a ride along unstable currents, and a controlled re-emergence into normal space. Only ships equipped with a certified Abyssal drives and a current-navigation suite can attempt it alone, everything else like civilian freighters, colony transports, smaller research vessels, and any ship whose Abyssal systems are offline or underpowered requires the assistance of a specialized transit ship.

Transit ships are purpose-built vessels of the C.D.F and a handful of licensed civilian operators, they are larger and more heavily reinforced than ordinary freighters, with oversized Drop field generators, extended current mapping arrays, and massive docking clamps or tow lattices capable of securing one or more client ships. In Commonwealth service the primary classes are the Charon Class heavy transit tenders for military use, and the Hermes Class for civilian use.

Transit begins at an Abyssal Gateway station, Ships form up under station control, and the transit vessel and its charges first accelerate along a carefully calculated vector in normal space, this “run-up” serves two purposes: 1. It brings the formation to the precise velocity and orientation required for a clean Drop.
2. It aligns the formation with the current’s entry vector as mapped by the station’s monitoring systems. Acceleration is gradual but sustained., Civilian passengers often describe the long burn as the most unsettling part of the journey, When the formation reaches Drop parameters, the transit ship’s field generators spin up. The micro-wormhole maintained by the station flares, and the entire group is pulled through into Abyss-space in a single, coordinated event, From the outside it looks like the ships simply vanish into a blue/purple cloud reaching out to them before dissipating.

Once inside, the transit ship rides the pre-charted current. The ride is rarely smooth, gravity shadows tug at the formation, shear layers cause the ships to shudder, distant storms appear as shifting walls of distorted light on the sensor displays. The transit ship’s Current Readers continuously adjust course, sometimes making small lateral burns to stay in the safest channel. Client ships remain dark and passive, their crews watching the same displays in silence or prayer. With the dual tradition of the Commonwealth is strongest here, with many crews still recite the short Litany of the Crossing before Drop, others speak of “paying the ferryman” in the old classical sense.

As the formation nears the exit gateway, the transit ship begins a long deceleration burn within the Abyss current itself. Timing is critical as too early and the ships may fall out of the current into a dead zone, too late and they risk overshooting the exit window or emerging at dangerous residual velocity.
When the exit parameters are met, the receiving station’s micro-wormhole opens. The transit ship drives the formation back into normal space in another coordinated surge. Emergence is abrupt—sensors suddenly fill with stars, communications return, and the station’s traffic control immediately takes charge. The transit ship then performs a final braking burn in normal space to bring the entire group to a safe relative velocity for docking or release, and RCS taking the wheel to allow the the ship’s engine to cool and the radiators to vent heat.
Only after the client ships are confirmed stable and their own systems are brought back online does the transit ship release its clamps, leading to the journeys completion.

Farmers Log 1

Morning including breakfast then we started the next 4 rows to plant corn.

The group continued working on the tower. They managed to do 3 more levels today. They should be done tomorrow. It will be manned by tomorrow night.

The workers from the Fort arrived and went right into harvesting potatos. At noon all bags collected were transported to the boat builders by the drivers directing horses. The path to the Island launch is to rough for the wagon.

Everything harvested this afternoon went into a storage in the ground.

The farmers wives cooked the deer and a ridiculous amount of potatos and corn.

End of Farmers Log 1

Boat building John Wight Log 1

Ragnar and I plus all our helpers finished here about 2pm and headed back with the horses carrying our gear back to farm.

Ragnar made some pieces they will need and a bunch of nails for the Shipwright.

The skeleton of the ship is strong and now they are putting wood on the skeleton closing the sides in.

When we got to the farm I was asked to make a device to lift wood and other items to the top of the tower. Ragnar and I put a very good pulley together.

We ate deer and potatoes which the farmers wives made a feast.

The drivers harnessed the horses to the wagons and headed to the Fort.

All were tired but satisfied after a hard day of work. Got to the Fort and went straight to bed.

End of John Wright Log 1

Woke up this morning no breakfast in bed and no pillow again. Tonight just going to give V the pillow and improvised one for myself.

After breakfast with everybody. We loaded all the potatoes except one bag on the second wagon.. a bunch of vegetables from here and a saddle for the ranch and a few harnesses.

A driver and shotgun got ready and as many Woodsman loaded the wagon. The 2 wheel wagon loaded helpers with a Wendy and Frank as shotgun Frank is riding his horse guiding his team other two horses.

They left by 9am for the trap and ranch. The last 4 wheel wagon went to the farm with many helpers on boards and the rest walking.

The Leadersmith is admiring the new deer leather and started taking care of them before he turns into leather products like saddles etc.

V was happy to return to her massages. I secretly went to speak to the ladies. They said they had enough for one more pillow.

The workers got back dirty and tired by 7pm. They headed straight in the lake. A bunch of tired and naked commoners splashing around. They dressed in clean clothing and came for supper.

Supper was deer stew with lots of potatoes.

Ykanti started singing. What wounderfull sounds were created. The commoners then sang traditional songs.

Tomorrow the wagon should be back with iron bars. The hunters are on their own schedule.

End of John Richman Log