"What, Senator, gave your staff the authority to alter the augmented reality used by 82nd Airborne in the Tanglier Conflict?"

"The authority for the project was under the auspices of the Department of Defense, my staff had DoD authority if you look at the methodology they used to predict and alter the augmented reality..."

"Senator, let me put this simpler to cut through your excuses: Did your staff alter the augmented reality of 82nd Airborne."

"The augmented reality program is subject to many variable, alterations can occur simply on the data provided by the National Geological Survey Department. My staff was integral to the design and use of the augmented reality system used by 82nd Airborne for Operation Eastern Typhoon as part of the Senate Military Affairs Oversight Commission. The fact that I'm being called up here to explain..."

"Senator: Yes or no?"

"If you would let me finish, the fact that the unfortunate mistake of allowing combatant overlays to be applied to civilian government officials and civilian populations through the augmented reality system is, ultimately, the fault of the Department of Defense, which did not have any safeguards for the 'skins' that were applied through the system..."

"Senator: Yes or no?"

"As I'm trying to explain, my staff and I were part of the Oversight Committee, and as such, we had total access to the entire system, including such things as mission variables, but whether or not we changed the data must be weighed against what data was altered and the ultimate decision..."

"Senator: Yes or no? Did your staff alter the augmented reality overlays so that government officials appeared to members of the 82nd Airborne division as armed enemy soldiers engaged in combat as well as civilian populations, which have been determined to be those protesting the ClearWater Drink Corporation's seizure of local water supplies?"

"I've been trying to explain to you, Counselor, that my people, at my direction, were instrumental in altering data in order to allow the military to carry out objectives important to American interests in the region that military officials may not have..."

"So, the answer is yes. You altered those overlays to cause the massacre of unarmed civilians and government works who opposed the ClearWater Drink Corporation's seizure of local water sources. Let the record show that the Senator..."

"I object, that is twisting the meaning of my words!"

"...has admitted that his staff, at his direction, altered the augmented reality overlays to the benefit of the Central Intelligence Agency and several multinational corporations."

"That's not what I said!"

--partial record fragment, Hartford Committee, Pre-Diaspora Hamburger Kingdom historical file

Roca looked up, blinking twice, switching from her retinal link to standard vision. The sky was dark with clouds, lightning flickering in their depths. Dust and pollen hung in the air thick enough to reduce visibility. The carcasses of great beasts surrounded her, many slowly exhaling air from internal structural bladders or book lungs.

She blinked again and got back her retinal link, waiting for it to update.

Her brain scanned the visual cues of the carcasses and put a light grid overlay on them to let her know they were down and out.

"Anyone see any Squids?" she asked across the t-link.

Nobody had and she turned to slowly look over the battlefield. She'd killed two with a single burst form her 20mm close assault cannon. Part of her brain went over the combat, her post-combat analysis cyberware and wetware fast-forwarding through everything.

Eight identified Atrekna leadership caste units detected.

Eight killed within 100m (+/- 5m) of detection location.

She closed her eyes, accessing the sats which were tickling her brain. She looked through their eyes at the planet.

A request from the Steamboat Willy to disable planetary batteries only sixty kilometers away popped up in her brain with a priority signal. She registered it, let Steamboat Willy that her team was enroute, and opened her eyes, banishing the satellite feed.

"Form up on me. Orbital request to knock out planetary batteries sixty klicks out. Supersonic jumps. Target grid incoming. Sat-coms will be relaying optimum landing grids. We'll go in full bore, crater your landing zone, extreme prejudice," Roca said over t-link. "Mbutu, you copy?"

Two clinks.

Roca nodded to herself. Mbutu was a good troop, tough and well trained. Whatever he was up to, he didn't need help with.

"Ping Ninth Squad elements if you need assistance, we're moving out to a new grid, out," Roca told Mbutu over t-link.

Two clinks.

"Let's go," Roca said. She knelt down, tensing her muscles and staring into the sky. Her arc was overlaid on her vision even as she adjusted the baseball sized graviton engine in her gut. She could feel the power coursing through her veins, feel it thrumming in her muscles. She put up a ten second counter, the rest of the squad's lights went green, and she activated it.

For a second the death of her daughter washed through her mind, her scream.

The way she called out for Roca with her dying thought.

The counter hit zero.

With a roar she launched herself into the air.

The boom of six Monster Class, One Each, breaking the sound barrier crashed over the field littered with steaming carcasses.

---------

The slavespawn space organisms had managed to get within firing range of the feral ship. Space was full of vomited up projectiles, projectiles launched by bioplasma detonations, phasic empowered projectiles, and more.

Thennis stood on the hull, on the deck of the Steamboat Willy, watching the battlescreens light up and ripple, watched missiles payloads claw and hammer on the projected protective fields, and saw projectiles explode against the screen.

A barrage of nCv shells fired by an autonomous war machine that was already a spreading cloud of debris got through one of the flickering screens in the few seconds between the primary screen failing and the replacement projectors being rotated up and activated.

Batteries six through nine were reduced to scrap, the deck shattered, exposing struts, bulkheads, and mechanisms. Bodies were reduced to scrap meat and flash fried blood, powdered and freeze dried. Those that were not killed outright screamed and twisted in the wreckage as damage control teams threw themselves into the wreckage to pull their shipmates out.

Thennis grunted as a chunk was torn out of her arm. She slapped her hand over the gouge, holding it for a moment as she raked her eyes across the sky. She gritted her teeth and raised her baton, pointing it at a cluster of Dwellerspawn heavy space combat organisms.

The deadspace cannons fired, leaving purple streaks in her vision that spun around a whitish-blue core. As she looked away the organisms began taking heavy hits, armor showering off, biomatter pluming out into space, as the gun payloads bypassed the shields and the armor to detonate inside the creatures.

Another set of hits rocked the Steamboat Willy, this time on the port side, below the 'water line' but still against the thick band of armor. Massive craters, meters deep, pockmarked the armor but it held and the antispalling liner inside kept fragments from ripping loose and bouncing through the interior of the vast warship.

"LAUNCH FIGHTERS!" Thennis bellowed, her voice shaking the hull.

Bay doors crashed open and tiny torchships, barely ten meters long, were launched out with grav-drivers, the ships moving at tens of thousands of kilometers a minute before they even kicked in their heavy graviton engines. 'Wings' lowered on either side, guns deployed on the 'nose', and the creation engines started kicking out racks of missiles. The graviton engine formed a blurring circle in front of the nose that was angled to 'chop' at space and pull the craft forward. Graviton engines in the wings would provide 'drag' or 'lift' to provide the craft maximum mobility.

The Atrekna witnessing the little craft, rushing them in formation, blinked in confusion.

Feral lemurs, immature females, wearing scarfs and goggles, were piloting the attack craft. The Atrekna could see no space suit, no protection from vacuum, and even see their hair flow behind them as if they were in an air current.

The Old Ones nodded to themselves.

**this fits the parameters** several Old Ones put into the communal combat mind. **these are indeed the Feral Lemurs of Terra**

The Young Ones stared. **those craft must be a trick**

The Ancient ones scoffed. **their weapons appear primitive and the pilots will soon enough suffocate**

The Old Ones looked at one another, many of them devotees of the Cult of the Defiled One, each convinced they were the only convert. **do not discount the Mad Lemurs until you have witnessed them in action**

The small attack craft broke into smaller flocks, each containing dozens of the tiny craft. Defensive fire from the Atrekna ships started blotting them away, destroying them or damaging them enmasse.

The Young Ones and the Ancient Ones felt cold logical satisfaction when the casualty count quickly rose to 10% and kept climbing.

**they will withdraw** the Ancient Ones stated. **anything more is a waste of resources that could be used to achieve victory in a later battle**

**they have been logically defeated** the Young Ones stated.

The lead pilot of Red Cat Wing shouted over her shoulder to her gunner/bomber a mixture of complete gibberish and scattered phonetic sounds that could generously be called parts of words. The bomber nodded and raised a red flag, pointing down and left at the big nautilus ship that was putting out heavy fire.

The others blinked their lights, getting in tight.

Together the thirty strong wing banked and drove forward, the pilots shoving the stick forward as far as it would go.

The Young Ones and Ancient Ones heard the sound. A scream, almost a siren sound, that traveled through space as if it was atmosphere.

Defensive fire took out one, then another, then three in quick succession.

**They will break off** the Ancient Ones aboard the vessel stated.

**they have too few to affect us** the Young Ones confirmed.

A railgun round snapped off her gunner's head, blood gouting out to turn to black frost and stream behind her fighter. She gritted her teeth, stomping the button, and the mechanical sight popped up in front of her.

Another one, another one, another one.

Mechanical sights popped up. In some the bomber/gunner took over piloting. In others the bomber/pilot stared through their lenses.

Another one. Yet another.

Another took a hit to the 'wing' and it tumbled over and over, catching on fire, then exploding.

The Young One and the Ancient Ones frowned at that.

The Old Ones ordered their ships to evasive action as incoming wings swept down on them.

The guns hammered and the battlescreens rippled beneath the rapid fire of anti-matter loaded three inch cannons. One by one the screens went down and the little craft came in close in a tight formation, one behind the other, releasing torpedoes. The initial attack missed with heavy torpedoes even as the guns hammered and blew craters in armor and flesh. Antimatter rounds exploded out huge divots in bio-engineered flesh. The torpedoes missed by bare margins.

One pilot fired with her sidearm as she swept by the hull of the Atrekna battle wagon.

The surviving ships banked, splitting into two, streaming away and then arcing around.

The Atrekna realized they were coming in on another attack run.

**Impossible, they have lost over half of their number** the Ancient Ones flatly stated.

**Yet they attack** the Old Ones countered.

**They cannot win** the Young Ones stated.

The second attack run began.

More were blotted away. Some glancingly hit to tumble and explode.

The 'fruit flies' got in close, guns hammering.

The Atrekna ships fired back, guns normally used to attack ships at medium ranges that weighed in the megatons or gigatons suddenly pressed into service to shoot at craft that weighed less than fifteen tons.

One pilot wiped the blood from her eyes. Her goggles were gone, her scarf was tattered and scorched, it was hard to 'breathe' and she had blood running from her nose and the corner of her mouth.

The craft in front of her exploded in flame and she ducked slightly as she swept through the debris field, hearing the pieces of the craft clank off her airframe. She gritted her teeth, coughed up blood, and shifted her foot from the rear graviton pedal to the bomb release even as she squeezed the trigger on her noseguns.

The Atrekna watched through the crystalline bubble, thick with phasic energy, as one, and only one, craft got through the defensive fire.

**It is useless** an Ancient One said, turning away.

**Folly** a Young One said.

The Old One quietly lowered the clamshell over the ejection pod it had slipped away to.

She screamed in agony/ecstasy as she pulled the stick back, roaring only fifty meters above the rippling 'foot' of the nautilus shelled ship. She kept the trigger clamped down on her nose gun even as her ammo counter dropped. Shells arced away from her fighter's nose as the antimatter rounds slammed into the shielding over the phasic crystal.

She could see the gathered Atrekna behind the glass.

**Does she...** one of the Ancient Ones asked.

**She can't see us...** a Young One stated.

The Old One triggered the ejection system and the ship launched the small craft away from the shell.

A kick and the last torpedo dropped from her craft even as she kept the stick forward, her other foot keeping the craft level.

She knew she should try to break off.

But she didn't care.

The torpedo oriented and dropped straight down, the graviton engine connecting the nose of the weapon to the top of the hull and increasing the traction geometrically each second.

The torpedo hit the top of the armored shell above the thickest part of the 'foot' at the same time as the light agile little craft's guns shattered the phasic crystalline viewing port.

The torpedo detonated with a flash at the same time as the fighter slammed into the burning gap.

Thennis saw the flagship explode even as she screamed out the order for another wave of fruit flies to launch.

She could feel it. The cold certainty.

Fate was twisting, chance was twisting.

The sun was burning yellow, the system was cresting back into normal space.

The battle was winnable.