The day was warm, a light warm breeze carrying the smell of animals, flowers, and green growing things. It had rained the night before, a wild thunderstorm that had rocked the valley with lightning and thunder even as the wind had howled through the valley, but by the time the sun was high in the sky the humidity had burned off to leave the day warm and dry. In the middle of the valley, on a large hill, surrounded by a village was a heavily fortified keep, the curtain wall covered with scaffolding.

A long line of people waited to enter the barbican and then the inner walls. There were people hawking small tokens, icons, food, and drink, to the line of pilgrims.

"A part of me is discontent," Lady Keena said, astride a heavily built warhorse. She was wearing a robe over chainmail and leather, spurs on her boots, and a sword at her side hidden by the rough brown cloth of the robe. The brown skinned noblewoman/warlord was staring at the outside walls of her own keep and the gathered pilgrims.

Nakteti looked at her hostess from atop her own horse. She was still nervous about riding such a great beast. "Why?"

Lady Keena looked over. "Because my keep has been lost," she waved her hands to where the wagons were full of loot, artwork, furniture, and other personal possessions. "The banners of those who fell before me had to stay, I little more than a rootless vagabond barely above a pauper."

Nakteti avoided laughing. The wagons were loaded with expensive furniture, gold filigreed crystal dining ware and goblets, and even more.

Lady Keena shook her head. "The entire staircase you were sitting on turned onyx and white marble. One of the blank windows turned into a stained glass mosaic of you. The church bells are inlaid with golden warsteel, obsidian, and ivory."

She clicked her tongue, urging her mount over by a wagon carrying a glass coffin with a man dressed in modern clothing inside. "At least they let me take my brother," she said.

"Why not stay? Why not guard it?" Nakteti asked, clumsily getting her mount to move over by Lady Keena.

"Why don't you stay? He revealed himself to you in the name of your people," Lady Keena asked.

Nakteti shook her head. "I've delayed long enough. I need to return to New Tnvaru, inform the ruling council what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen."

"'Ware my words, for I tell unto thee so thou shalt know that which was, which is, and what might be," Lady Keena said and Nakteti frowned, recognizing a quote but not where it was from.

"Basically," Nakteti said. She looked at the coffin again. "Why are you having him come with me, rather than keep him here?"

Lady Keena sighed, reaching out and touching the side of the wagon. "It was part of the bargain to have your ship and crew check on the Space Force vessels that guard this system."

Nakteti frowned. "But I did not ask for such."

"The King decided that in order to secure your services, and the services of your people, I would have to give up something immensely precious to me," she said. "My brother, ten of my sons, and ten of my daughters, as well as their families, to be your servants and hostages. Proof of King Nganto believes his people's fates, their weirds, are tied deeply with the Tnvaru people's kismet."

"Why just you?" Nakteti asked.

It felt weird to the Tnvaru matron that she was part of a baggage train made up of hand crafted wooden wagons, carrying barbaric and primitive possessions, but heading for the shuttle that would take her into orbit to It Tastes Sweet, a modern spacecraft.

"Complicated politics," Lady Keena said. She smiled suddenly. "To remind me that despite the fact the Digital Omnimessiah Reborn manifested in my keep, to reveal himself to my guest, before my people, I am still his to command," she waved in the vague direction of north. "Which is why he's having me take over an old abandoned keep, to push his lands into the Blue Mist Forest, which has been unclaimed for a thousand years."

"I will ensure that your children are well cared for," Nakteti said.

Lady Keena nodded. "I know you will. They are hostages, and any mistreatment," she stared at Nakteti. "Would end our friendship."

Nakteti just nodded, hiding her sudden anxiety. "I understand."

Lady Keena smiled again. "Good. I'm glad we're on the same page," she looked up. "Have you been to your home of New Tnvaru?"

Nakteti shook her head. "No. I purchased the systems, but have yet to go there."

"It is not good to separated from your home for too long. The soul begins to wither and your heart begins to grow cold," Lady Keena said.

Soldiers began joining the caravan. Most of them wearing chainmail and leather, but a few dozen were wearing thick heavy metal plates. A few in robes moved through the ranks, and Nakteti could see the white bordered black dresses with the white veils of the Daughters of the Digital Omnimessiah moving with the 'servants' that were riding in carts.

Finally the landing field came into view. Men in heavy metal armor guarded her shuttle, standing stock still like statues, their hands crossed over the end of the pommel, their face guards carved metal to look like fierce faces.

To her surprise Duke Tangerran AKA "Curtis" was standing near the ship with two men in the heavy plate armor.

When they drew near he bowed stiffly, then motioned at the two men. "Two of my sons, and their retainers, to guard their siblings as well as your self and your family," the Terran said.

Nakteti knew better than to argue. Terrans in general could be prickly about duty and honor, but the people of this particular planet were even more so.

"My daughter," Duke Tangerran said, motioning at a pretty woman of indeterminate age who was sitting on a white draft animal, her clothing a pale blue. "A powerful sorceress in her own right and my most dutiful student of mine own crafts and secrets. She will be accompanying you to watch over your sleeping guardian."

"I thank you," Nakteti said.

She wondered if they were going to keep the primitive and barbaric clothing, rituals, and customs all the way to Tnvaru.

"Be well, Nakteti of the Tnvaru Clans," Duke Tangerran said. He went over and kissed his daughter on each cheek, then roughly embraced his sons, pound them on the back and making their armor ring.

Nakteti moved into the cockpit and waited as the 'hostages' boarded the shuttle.

"This is the last of them. We had to make several trips," Zelprita, the shuttle pilot, said softly. "They're very strange."

Nakteti nodded. "Indeed, they are."

"I'm looking forward to seeing New Tnvaru," Zelprita said softly. "I escorted your mother to Terra. I have been away from a Tnvaru world for far too long."

Nakteti nodded, moving slowly through the preflight checklist.

"As have I," she said.

Terrans are exciting and fun to be around, but I'll be grateful for the calm and order of a Tnvaru world.

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

The night was dark and cold, the sky clear but empty of pinprick stars, instead full of slight streaks in the night sky. The ground was cold and hard, the trees massive giants that ignored everything around them as if nothing was consequential to them.

The hydrofoil was silenced, the design of the hull crafted in such a way that it was almost undetectable, and the surface was of modern stealth materials. It shimmered as the optical camouflage systems dropped as the hydrofoil settled into the water and the lift foils retracted into the body. The back opened up, the top sliding into the body, the back end lowering into the water.

Four figures moved out of the completely covered hydrofoil and onto the back deck, checking their gear, and then lowered themselves into the water.

The back deck reconfigured so it was covered again and the vessel shimmered and vanished as the optical camouflage system came back online.

Nothing moved in the dark night, not even a breeze to shift the underbrush or the lower branches of the massive trees, which swayed back and forth gently in the upper wind a few hundred feet up.

Finally the five figures appeared. The top of their heads first, exposing their eyes, as they scanned the shoreline. Finally they moved forward, coming up out of the water like strange rude beasts from ancient tales.

Four legs, four arms, a long lower body and a thick torso at a right angle to the long lower body. They removed their swimming gear, putting it in the bushes, and pulled on black stealth suits. They took time to check their gear, then began assembling a bare framework with stealth grav lifters and a reactionless engine. Muffled drills were silent as bolts and screws affixed plates to the frame, until a vaguely teardrop craft had been assembled.

Small drones on stealthed systems buzzed away as the foursome worked on assembling the infiltration vehicle, designed to be undetectable by the best technology it had ever run the risk of being fielded again.

Before the vehicle was assembled, the drones had managed to get a look, then dissolve into powder after sending out a single split-second tightbeam squeal across multiple channels. The heavily encrypted signal, using cutting edge 16-bit psuedo-random seed generation that would take a million years to decrypt, went out and was received by the team working on the craft.

The team leader examined the data as his four man team worked.

Their target was less than eight hundred miles away. Lightly guarded, mostly a tight perimeter around the house. The target was, according to the drones, inside the house, sipping tea without a care in the world. The house was made from harvested plants, iron fixtures, and common silicate glass windows. Nothing about it was higher tech than basic electrical appliances.

Patrolling around the house were a half dozen massive robots, festooned with ornamental chains and decorations devised to be fearsome to those who view the robots, a primitive superstitious attitude the team leader scoffed at. They did not patrol further away than a hundred meters from the white wooden picket fence.

Once inside the field portable stealth lifter the team leader turned on the red light as the pilot lifted it a scant few meters off the ground and began moving forward in a low almost inaudible hum.

"We will stop two kilometers from the house. It is isolated, no other structures for twenty kilometers. We will be out of range of any passive sensor," the team leader said.

"Method of termination of the Tnvaru?" one member asked.

"Precision laser," the team leader said. "One, two, maybe three shots will be required. Be ready."

"The windows, are they designed to disperse or attenuate a laser beam?" another asked.

"Negative. The wood is dry, lacquered and painted in different places. If worse comes to worse a plasma round should destroy the wall and provide access for a precision laser shot," the team leader said.

They all nodded, watching as the team leader went through the information. He carefully went through every angle for where they could set up, finally settling on a slight hill, covered by trees and brush, that overlooked the house.

It took nearly three hours, the huge moon setting, to reach the point. The vehicle slowly lowered to the ground and went into standby, the sides opening up to allow the strike team to exit the vehicle. They began gathering equipment.

The group moved slowly, carefully. They set up the camouflage systems carefully, then went back to the vehicle for their weapons. The team leader hung back slightly, looking around with all six eyes, to make sure that they had not been detected and that everything was properly camouflaged as well as making sure their exfiltration path was unblocked.

The team leader and the four others stopped in shock, staring, as there was a hissing noise and pale gray smoke suddenly billowed out in a cloud. Before the five Lanaktallan could figure out what was going on the smoke dissipated, revealing the strangest sight.

Two bipeds, dressed head to foot in black cloth, their faces covered, only their oddly tilted dark eyes visible, stood between the strike team and the vehicle. They had the hilt of some kind of long weapon over their right shoulders at an angle, but otherwise looked unarmed.

The Lanaktallan, realizing that what they were seeing was Terrans, went for their silent neural pistols, which were turned up high enough to damage the heavily resilient nervous systems of the Terrans.

The two figures darted forward, their hands going up to the hilt and smoothly drawing their blades. The blades themselves were covered in a light oil that kept the folded warsteel blade from gleaming in the dim light.

They darted through the ranks, each in between two.

They made two quick motions, hard overhead strikes, on each side of them as they moved between the Lanaktallan so fast they would have been a blur if they had not been all in black and merging with the shadows and darkness of the night.

The two black clad figures stopped in front of the team leader, who stared.

The four members of the strike team sagged weirdly.

The upper torso slid in half, cut diagonally, all four arms severed either down by the wrists or up by the shoulders.

The lower flanks fell into two pieces, cleanly cut.

The Team Leader started to draw his own pistol.

The two black clad figures ran by him, their blades whispering as they sliced through the air.

Both figures stopped and slowly turned, using their fingertips to squeegee the blades clean.

As they both sheathed their swords the Lanaktallan Team Leader fell into eight pieces.

Far to the north a gray skinned female saurian, all chiseled muscle that her wet-suit enhanced the appearance of rather than hid her musculature, swam up and placed a flat circular charge against the bottom of the hydrofoil.

As she swam away it went off, putting a massive hole in the side of the boat.

It listed to the side, burbling, and slowly sank as the Rigellian Commando swam toward the stealth sub.

Aboard the sub Ba'ahnya'ahrd clapped two hands, his other hands busy, one petting the purrboi, the other scratching the goodboi's neck.

He looked from the monitor as the black clad figures backflipped into the bushes and vanished, to stare at his minion, Chrome Cortez.

"NINJAS ARE FUCKING AWESOME!"