Flames scorched Daxin, foul and debased energies lashed his very soul, and he gritted his teeth to hold back the scream of agony as his skin slowly melted away moving through hellspace. His legs were exhausted, burning with pain, the bones splintered and shattered like ground glass. Every gasp was an agony, every inhalation torture as the jagged splintered edges of broken ribs scraped his lungs, as his bruised and punctured diaphram quivered in agony trying to force him to breathe in and out. His teeth were mostly shattered, only two incisors left to keep a bare handful of molars company, his tongue burnt and lacerated and tasting battery acid and blood. One eye was swollen shut, the flesh bruised and cut over an empty socket. Fingers were torn and broken on one hand, the wrist broken, the arm slashed, but his other hand could still make a fist and he kept it clenched in hate.

Every second was torture.

He hit the black mirror full of flames and pain and tortured memories of past wounds, the mirror flexing, stretching, shattering, the glassnotglass slashing his face, his arms, his shoulders, flaying skin from his body. Daxin hurtled his rage out into the uncaring void as he entered realspace.

Daxin screamed in wrath and hate as hellspace slid off his skin, the great iron doors of Hades slammed shut, and he slid into the blessed coolness of realspace.

THERE IS ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE!

The two screams met, mingled, rippling space-time. Daxin's roaring bellow of hate shattered the screech of damnation that the Leviathan howled at him,

Realspace returned with a jerk that made Daxin vomit.

I AM A MAN! MEAT OVER CODE! MUSCLE OVER METAL!

I JUST WANT LEFT ALONE!

A giant, an ogre, a massive creature in heavy spiked plate armor swung an axe down at Daxin's battered body and Daxin barely managed to roll out of the way, kicking out with one foot, driving the giant back a step. It roared and swung a spiked fist at Daxin but Daxin managed to scramble up to his feet, slapping the fist aside and driving his own fist into the giant's side. It roared in anger and Daxin bellowed raw hatred back. The giant warhammers, one in each of its four arms, swung at Daxin but he managed to throw himself aside and avoid...

The main gun batteries missed Daxin by only a hundred kilometers as Daxin's senses all shifted, pulling his conscious mind out of the stupor and turning awareness back even as his subconscious and the Rboi still ran the fight.

Everything was redllined, everything was overheated, he was having problems venting the heat. He'd dropped his last thermal cores into the way of the Leviathan, risking overheating and having them detonate inside his hull, using them as mines that had washed superheated matter across its bow. Daxin had timed it so C+ warshot impacted the continental shelf the Leviathan called a bow, the shells blowing deep through kilometers of liquified armor before "impacting" deep inside.

The forward main guns, huge batteries with barrels by the thousand measured in meters, eight hundred kilometers worth the main guns, had exploded. The Leviathan had streamed liquified alloys and metals into space, energy exploding outward like a sun had ignited.

But the injury, as severe as it was, was like carving out the Grand Canyon across the western edge of Australia and not much else.

To Daxin and his warboi's shock, that's when it ran.

Bringing himself back to reality, Daxin blinked, clearing blood from his eyes, and saw the Leviathan was racing for the inner system, screaming again, but the scream was different this time.

THERE MUST BE MORE FOR ONE TO ENDURE

The signal was broadcast omnidirectional. Across all the spectrums, from X-ray to visible light, across every band it could scream.

THAT was a new signal. Something Daxin had never heard. It was new.

And Daxin, like most humans, had long ago learned that in this universe, new was usually bad.

The warbois urged him to keep heading in-system, keep harrying the Leviathan, stay on it, stay after it, not to let it run away and lick its wounds.

Instead Daxin ordered the overheating creation engine to build a thermal core and a high-spike decoy. It was 80% slush, but he had no choice.

The Leviathan kept hammering deeper and deeper in system, screeching that signal over and over.

It wasn't panic. The Precursor ships were incapable of panic.

Daxin felt cold sweat prickle across his back as he went to full deceleration.

This one was calling for friends.

No. You never find them more than one at a time. They hate each other just as much as they hate everyone else. They've decided that there can only be one to benefit from the universe's finite resources, Daxin thought. He searched his memory, urged his ship to search the archives and memory banks.

To fit the profile and drive signature of the ship.

Two of his three zero-point reactors were near-dead, heating up slowly, and he didn't have long before he would have to eject them or soak them in supercoolant. The particles that ran the zero-point reactors had changed state too far and were now moving toward each other.

The warbois rejoiced as Daxin fired the sole working C+ cannons, one of them jumping its track as its warped barrel split down the side. The missiles races out, not bothering with stealth, just going to max acceleration, programmed to deploy the submunitions then slam into the rear of the Leviathan. The warbois inside rejoiced, gibbering and dancing with glee. Beam weapons tore out, long stripes of ravening coherent light that actually carried physical weight.

His/ship's memories couldn't find any reference to the drive signature or the weapon's signature. Daxin has smashed his way through more than a half-dozen Precursor Wars and even his own personal memories couldn't find a single...

The weapons hit. The C+ shells first, slamming into the still burning central engine, seeking and questing for anything vulnerable, the warbois in the hyperdrive guidance system chattering with glee as they activated the drive one last time in a fluttering stutter that ripped parts of the drive tube away and smeared them across the eternity of hyperspace. The missiles giggled and raved as they shattered by design. Even the energy beams howled with glee.

Two more of the massive engines went dark and something exploded nearly a hundred miles further into the ship, energy, vaporized metal, and more pluming out of the top and bottom.

...wait...

The return volley nearly took Daxin's "head" off, ripping deep enough that one of his engine flared out and Daxin vomited blood into space.

...not a ship drive, not energy signatures.

Daxin ordered the half-finished thermal core loaded up, the ragged barely working decoy loaded.

It hurt, it was needles and sawblades being pushed into his flesh but he gritted his teeth and accepted the pain.

...there... that memory...

Daxin's own...

Those Locust class Precursor replicators. Those had only been seen once, on Veremek's Crossing, when they'd left the depths of a gas giant and attacked the settled planets. They'd ravaged those planets, had taken twelve years to dislodge, and even then they'd glassed half of the surface of the planets they'd assaulted.

there are always at least two sides in a war

Daxin loaded his suspicions and proof into a hyperspace capable message torp and fired it off, then cracked his last one open. He needed to see, needed to give the torp the proof.

His senses detected them. Helldrives lighting off on the surface of eight of the barren planets in the system, more in the gas giants. He focused his long range scanners on the nearest one, a planet.

At first nothing happened. The surface was marred by craters, dust across the airless surface, the core dead and still. Then it started, the dust trembling, shaking, then rising up in plumes. Cracks appeared in the planet's surface as a section the size of the Leviathan started lifting up from the rest of the planet.

The Leviathan's brother, the first to awaken, the first to break free, lifted free of the planet, tearing apart the continental plate as it rose from where it had stilled and then siphoned away the planet's nickle-iron core.

WE ARE ONE

Daxin ejected the decoy, ejected the thermal core with it, vomited up more blood, ejected the critical red-lining zero-point reactors along the same trajectory as the decoy. He shut it all down. All but the hyperdrive. Everything but his emergency life support feed that began dropping rapidly in charge as he used it to stay connected to the hypercore.

The hyperdrive was charged.

He had one shot.

One chance.

His nerves were stretched tight as he whispered to himself in the darkness as the Leviathan's brothers tore their way free of their tombs where they had slumbered for millions of years.

He launched the second torpedo.

it's not the metal it's the meat

His senses detected the thermal core detonating, the superheated protomatter exploding and washing over the lukewarm zero-point reactors, overheating them. They exploded with fury.

Just before the intial cascade of high energy particles reached him, he triggered the hyperdrive, flaring it so that energy burst out in a halo as if an overstressed drive had exploded. The torpedo vanished.

The split second jump dropped him the Oort cloud, slapping into a thin cloud of hydrogen that stretched, bulged, then let him puncture the cloud and come to rest deep inside the cloud, surrounded by wisps of oxygen and nitrogen.

Daxin ordered the fixbois to work, the last warboi to keep watch, and closed his eyes.

His ship slowly used magnetics to pull in the dissipate gasses. One fixboi spotted a comet and used the last remaining force projector, damaged though it was, to deflect it toward the ship and pull it close.

Creation Engine: 96% Slush and falling. Thermal level falling.

I just want left alone.

------------------------------

NEKO MARINE ALERT

ZEN SENSO ZEN SENSO ZEN SENSO

ZEN KAWAII! KAWAII-DESU!! DOKI DOKI DOKI

WAAAAAARRRGGH!

FOR THE EMPEROR!

-------BEAUTY FOLLOWS-------

DA ORKIEST ORK BOSS SEZ

WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!

------DO NOT FOLLOW ME-----------

Loyal Subjects, hear my call! One of the Ancient Enemy has arisen! He threatens the lands and all the people of our beloved and honored Aastruk of the Razored Maw and Gentle Claw! His people, the people of his friends, all of his peoples, are threatened with dire oblivion! Shall we stand aside and let our friend down? I SAY THEE NAY! Now is the time to gird your loins in enchanted steel, wield the blade that cuts the wind, bring magic powerful and sublime to fearsome life! The enemy will drown all in darkness and all we have done will be cast away on the wind.

I say thee, NAY! Not as long as strength lies in a single limb, not as long a single drop of blood remains! We shall not let the light fade from this world or others! We shall carry the fire of light and love and beauty within us as we raise our voices in song and join this Holy Crusade!

Elves, Dwarves, Humans! All who kneel before my throne, the time is now!

War, rude and uncouth, is thrust upon us!

Heed my call, beautiful ones, for to war we go!

All DLC is unlocked, all Holy Expansion Packs are unlocked, all items on the Grand Item Shop are unlimited and without cost for all who join the Holy Crusade of Beauty and Life!

The fallen shall be remembered in song and art for eons to come! True heroism never dies!

Join me! Join my armies! Join for love! Join for song! Join for glory! Join for honor!

FOR LIGHT! FOR BEAUTY! FOR FRIENDS JUST MET! FOR TERRA-SOL!

Her Eternal Elven Grace, Divine Light of the Aether, Lady of Magic and Power, Queen Radosalvov.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

ALL GAME ALL BRACKETS ALL LADDER ANNOUNCEMENT

Unlimited point army battles coming soon! Unlimited land, sea, air, space armies! Unlimited ally contracts!

NON-CANON ALLY CONTRACTS PERMITTED

THIS IS IT BOYS!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

ALL COSPLAY ANNOUNCEMENT

Triple points awarded, full WARCON at TBA.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREEWORLDS INTERNAL MEMO

The Terrans are howling for blood. Something about these Precursors drive them absolutely "blood crazy" to use their words. A full 11% of them are howling for war, all rushing for the Dead Zone.

Those races don't stand a chance against even a single Precursor machine, much less what was reported. In an unheard of move those things are cooperating instead of killing each other.

Brothers, we should consider giving up our vows of pacifism to at least allow us to assist the Terrans.

How bad are the Terrans taking it?

They're thawing out the idiots.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

Daddy;

I know you might not approve, but I have to go. I have to fight. I can't bear the thought of those gross Precursor things hurting those squirrels. It's just awful and I can't stand it.

Please don't be mad. I have to do this. Haven't you always said the strong endure to protect the weak?

Daddy, they were so small. I have to help.

Love;

Sandy