“Okay, dropping in now,” Jesri called out, her hands dancing over the console. Outside the cockpit, the charged plasma of reentry was dissipating to show sparse fluffy clouds. Droplets of water hissed and boiled away from the hull as the ship cut through the thin air of the Ysleli stratosphere.

Anja stood behind her, again fully clad in a suit of Valkyrie powered armor. One massive hand curled its fingers around a bracing beam, the other cradling her rifle. Even with the armor on, her stance betrayed impatience. “Time?”, she asked, her voice grating flatly through the suit’s external speakers.

“Looks like… two minutes,” Jesri said, wrestling with the controls. She swore as the ship jolted violently, bucking in the airstream. They had taken the Huginn fast-attack craft rather than a shuttle, and while it offered better protection and armaments the FAC was not designed for graceful atmospheric maneuvering.

Below them, large stretches of farmland covered the terrain in a regular hexagonal patchwork. Jesri squinted at the display, adjusting course to keep their trajectory centered. They had been able to identify a distinct signature indicative of Terran power cores in the mountains of the largest continent. They couldn’t be sure the weapon was there, but it was their best bet.

As the flat farmland gave way to rolling foothills, Jesri leveled off their descent. It wasn’t long before she saw their target, a cluster of buildings nestled in a remote valley. Conveniently, there seemed to be a large airstrip for atmospheric flyers present. She angled her approach to line up parallel with the runway, coming to a stop in the air a few hundred meters above the facility.

She keyed the ship to descend vertically, releasing her restraints and jumping up to grab her tactical gear. Anja tromped backwards to the exit hatch as Jesri strapped on her helmet and body armor, slick grey fabric sliding over an articulated core of ceramic plating.

By the time their FAC’s skids had made contact with the ground, she was fully equipped with armor, tactical optics and a matte charcoal breaching rifle slung loosely over her shoulder. The atmosphere on Ysl was within reasonable parameters, so she opted for a tactical faceplate rather than a respirator. One of them needed to operate the shuttle, and while that precluded powered armor there were other quite serviceable options at hand - the armory in the Valkyrie sector had proven to be quite well-stocked.

Anja toggled the landing ramp, moving towards it as it opened with a rush of equalizing pressure. Crisp mountain air rushed into the cabin, infiltrating under Jesri’s faceplate with the tantalizing scent of vegetation and moisture. She paused for a second to relish it, thinking of the last time she had set foot on a planet with a breathable atmosphere. It had been a long time.

She was jolted out of her reverie by a loud crack as a kinetic slug caromed off Anja’s armor, harmlessly ricocheting back to embed itself in the surface of the runway with a spray of fragmented stone. Anja let out a low growl and brought her rifle up while Jesri moved quickly behind a support beam.

Peering out, she could see the response to their sudden incursion. Green-liveried soldiers crowded around the edge of the runway, hiding behind some spare crates and pallets. The Ysleli were tall with long, gangly arms and yellowed skin that clashed horrendously with their uniforms. Two forward-looking, predatory eyes sat high on their faces like black marbles over a gaping maw lined with tiny sharp teeth.

“These fellows look pleasant,” noted Anja, sighting down her rifle. Her metallic finger squeezed the trigger and one of the assembled soldiers exploded in a cloud of blood, bile and steam. His companions dove quickly back to cover over the dark smear where their comrade had stood. An answering spray of fire echoed through the valley and drew sparks where bullets pinged off of Anja’s armor.

Anja stepped further down, her suit moving the rifle precisely to track exposed limbs or thin spots in the crate barricade. More shots lanced through the soldiers’ cover, followed by wet pops and ululating wails of pain.

Jesri shook her head and moved back to the controls of the shuttle. “We don’t have time for this,” she grumbled, keying up the automated defenses. “Anja, I’m turning on the perimeter guns!”, she shouted.

“No fun,” Anja replied irritably, firing steadily at the soldiers. Jesri punched the control and turrets activated from the top and bottom of the Huginn, tracking targets around the ship. When the next fusillade came from the troops at the edge of the runway, the ship-mounted cannons chugged a few heavy blasts into the piled crates in response.

The crates disintegrated in a spray of fragments, peppering the troops clustered behind them with white-hot metal shards. The few survivors limping back from the blackened remnants of their cover took direct hits from the following salvo, their bodies providing only a mild and messy impediment to the cannon’s fire as it tore through them to gouge deep ruts in the soil.

“No fun at all,” groused Anja, moving all the way down the ramp. “Come on, sister, I have a lock on the signal source.” Jesri followed her down, her rifle held at eye level against her shoulder and her stance low. The ramp hissed up behind them, sealing the ship. As they moved across the field towards the installation’s cluster of buildings, Jesri toggled her communicator.

«I wonder how the boys are doing?», she sent, moving close behind Anja. Her sister pulled back a fist and slammed it through the door of the first building, sending it flying off its frame to crash into three soldiers waiting within.

«They just have to talk, it will be fine!», replied Anja distractedly, pulling her sword off her back and fastening it under her rifle. Bayonet thus affixed, she ducked past the door with a pulse of wordless satisfaction through the link. Jesri sighed and moved to follow her just as the first screams started from farther within. Hopefully Qktk and Rhuar could handle things up top for a few minutes.

Warmaster Reltryn growled low, the subsonic tremor of his anger causing his subordinates to flinch back. He was not unused to combat - in fact, the prospect of bloodshed was normally enough to brighten his mood considerably. The sudden appearance of a gargantuan warship over their capital, captained by a nightmarish alien monstrosity who howled at them in broken snippets of badly accented Yslel - that was a different thing entirely.

It wanted to fight, that much was obvious. He had come quickly in response to the customs agent’s panicked summons, forming up his picket patrol against the overwhelming bulk of the warship and attempting to negotiate the terms of combat. The horrid-looking alien warlord seemed to crave an honorable contest against the forces of Ysl, as was proper, but…

“INADEQUATE!”, it howled, its glossy mandibles jittering disconcertingly. “More required! Offer ours greater!” Spearbrother Syrir spoke placatingly to the demon beast, who shouted a few more enraged epithets before disconnecting abruptly. The spearbrother slumped, shaking his head, then looked up at Reltryn hopelessly.

“It demands greater forces be brought to bear,” he said, cringing away from the warmaster’s anger. “It does not consent to fight our patrol on the field of honor.”

Another growl rippled from the warmaster’s chest, and Syrir bared his throat in anticipation of death for his failure. It did not come, however, and he dared a glance back up to see Reltryn looking contemplative.

“Ordinarily,” hissed Reltryn, “I would demand my own satisfaction for such an insult. However, this shipmaster...” He looked out the viewport, seeing the bright sliver of the alien ship hanging distantly in the starry void. “This one may have cause to demand higher satisfaction than I can offer. His might is great.” He floated back to loom over his terrified subordinate. “Syrir, send a message to warfather Tarl. Inform him that our enemy has made a challenge to the honor of His Royal Majesty, long life and glory to the King.”

Syrir anchored his feet to bow low and pushed back towards his console, but Reltryn hooked a claw around his arm before he could depart. The terrified spearbrother met his gaze, shrinking back from the violent aura emanating from the warmaster’s every move. “Tell the warfather,” Reltryn growled, “that our enemy contests the honor of all warriors in his service.”

Syrir gulped and went to transmit the message, leaving Reltryn to drift weightlessly before the viewport and contemplate the bulk of their enemy’s great warship further. In his years of service he had seen much, and he thought himself knowledgeable about military matters. Yet this demon warlord was new. He brought a single ship to beggar navies and had knowledge of the Ysleli language and customs where Reltryn had none in return. Such a powerful and canny foe merited consideration, caution. Who could say what devilry such a being could wield?

Qktk slumped in the captain’s chair, legs shaking. “Mr. Rhuar,” he gasped, “I’m running out of things to say to them! How much longer until the ship can translate their language?”

Rhuar shook his head from the pilot’s station where he was communing with the ship via the jack. “Give it a few more minutes, Captain,” he said, “we’re tapped into their transmissions and are gathering as much source material as we can. You don’t want to use it before it’s ready, you’ll end up insulting their honorable grandmothers or something.”

Qktk clattered his mandibles in annoyance. “Right now I’m just screaming things I used to hear the Ysleli tradebrothers say when they were haggling,” he complained, waving his arms. “I don’t even know what half the words mean! In all probability they think I’m insane.”

“Insane is good,” snorted Rhuar. “I mean, not normally. If you’re insane on the bridge of a gigantic fuckin warship, though, it has an effect on people.” He stared into the distance, focusing on data from the sensor link. “It looks like that last exchange stirred them up a bit, so let’s wait for them to do whatever they’re doing. By the time they’re ready to talk more we should be able to speak in full sentences.”

He looked back towards the planet with the ship’s sensors. “If we’re lucky, the Huginn will be back up here with the weapon before these idiots are ready to fight.”

Anja barreled through the doorframe, sending chunks of the bunker wall tumbling down as her too-wide shoulders impacted on either side. The spray of stone chips and dust flew into the faces of the waiting soldiers, who swiped frantically at their eyes or fired blindly at the charging Valkyrie.

She was on them in seconds, her massive bayonet sweeping across the front rank and severing three soldiers at the torso. She speared a fourth through the gut, then fired her rifle to send his corpse blasting backwards off the sword into the remaining troops. They struggled to rise, dark blood coating them from head to toe, but before they could reorient they were cut down in the span of a second by precise bursts of rifle fire.

Jesri lowered her weapon and walked the rest of the way into the room. “Clear,” she said dispassionately. “Let’s move on.” They had pressed further into the complex only to discover an extensive warren of fortified tunnels below the surface buildings. No mere outpost, this was turning out to be a heavily fortified military research installation.

Not that it mattered much. Anja was forging a trail of destruction through the compound and it looked like the only weapons present were primitive kinetic slug rifles. Although they’d be a problem for Jesri if she got exposed to too much fire, Anja was entirely unaffected by their efforts. A few times they had tried to throw some form of explosive grenade - until Anja started batting them back towards the soldiers. They abandoned that tactic quickly.

They pushed through another line of soldiers who had fortified a security checkpoint, their weapons fire making quick work of the makeshift cover that had been pushed into the hallway. Anja gave a grunt of satisfaction as she passed the smoking remnants of the checkpoint and toggled her link to talk to Jesri over the din of battle.

«This looks like our target,» she noted. Jesri had to agree. The room they had entered was a large, low-ceilinged space with numerous pallets and shelves. On each were bits of technology scavenged from human installations - door controls, console displays, even a string of decorative fairy lights they’d found somewhere. The displays were labeled in angular lines of Yslel, neatly ordered in rows along the entirety of the room.

They advanced into the room, weapons ready, but encountered no enemies. Another door led to an extension of the warehouse and some token resistance. That room held more valuable prizes - rifles, armor, and other military technology. Some were strewn across tables in various stages of disassembly, groups of technicians fleeing in terror as Anja stalked towards them.

Jesri received a notice on her heads-up display that a data packet had been transmitted to them through the FAC. She found a niche to review it and saw with surprise that Qktk and Rhuar had managed to compile a translation data library for Yslel already, and had sent it forward to them. She looked up to watch Anja bodily throw a flailing soldier into the wall, staining the stone with a spatter of blood as he slumped lifelessly to the floor. Jesri sighed. It didn’t look like they’d have much opportunity to use the translator.

She moved through a shattered doorway to follow her sister, but stopped short when she came up against Anja staring fixedly at the contents of the next room. It was mostly empty, clean and spare except for the rubble around the doorway. A large table in the middle of the room was surrounded by a cluster of analytical and diagnostic equipment, and as Jesri moved around her sister’s hulking form she saw a cadre of frightened Ysleli scientists in lab dress quickly backing away from it.

On the table was a naked humanoid form, its skin dry and papery with age. The chest was sliced open, peeled apart to show the ribs and shriveled organs inside. Its head was turned to the side, facing away from Jesri, but the faded blonde hair was in full view. It had been plaited in a complex pattern, interleaved up to the crown of the head. Just like her sister Sophia used to wear it.

A low rumble suffused the air in the room, rising to a throaty growl as Anja stepped forward to confront the huddle of scientists. “You dare,” she thundered, stalking towards them. Her suit broadcast the words in Yslel as Anja spoke, bands of white-hot plasma rippling around her arms in a fiery mantle. “You fucking insects dare to touch my sister.” One of the scientists fainted.

“Please,” another shouted, “we only meant to study-”

“DEFILERS!”, she roared, the suit’s speakers augmenting her voice to bone-shaking volume. “THIEVES AND VERMIN!” She swept her sword across the group, slicing the Ysleli in half with a spray of blood. With a wordless scream, she leapt at the pile of dying aliens and began pounding them with gouts of plasma flaring from her fists, gore splattering around her with each thundering blow.

Jesri walked up to the table, laying her rifle next to her sister’s corpse. From the other side of the table, she could see that they had removed her eyes, blank sockets sightlessly looking out as Anja crushed the bloody remains of the scientists again and again into the ground. She stroked the corpse’s pleated hair gently, once, then turned to face her living sister.

“Anja,” Jesri said gently. The crash of the suit’s fists into the hardened floor drowned her voice in a wash of thunder. «Anja,» she said again through the link. «This isn’t why we’re here.»

“Our sister is dead!”, Anja screamed back, slamming her flame-wreathed fist through the wall. Stone dust settled lightly over the spatters of blood on her suit.

«And we’re going to avenge her,» Jesri countered, «by going after the one who did kill her. Not this trash.»

Anja straightened up, glaring down at the smashed remains at her feet for a few long seconds. “You are right, I was distracted,” she grated, “we need to find the weapon.” She raised her rifle and started towards the next area, pausing only once to look back at the examination table. “We will give no quarter to these grave robbers, however,” she growled, spitting the words out like poison, “if any more cross our path.”

Rhuar had to stop himself from pacing back and forth. The shipjack cable didn’t permit such things, as good as it would feel to walk off some of the building tension. “Uh, Captain,” he said, “there’s a lot of ships out there.”

Qktk shot him an irritated glare. “You said that,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, but I mean,” Rhuar tilted his head, causing a viewscreen to display a tactical map, “there are a lot of ships out there.” On the map, the blue bar representing the Grand Design sat centered in a sphere of graduated lines. The planet was visible, although growing less so every second as red dots continued to swarm up from the surface like angry bees.

“Jim’s moldy balls,” Qktk swore, “is each one of those a ship?”

Rhuar gulped. “Uh, no, each one of those is a fleet element. Ten ships on average.”

Qktk didn’t even bother to swear at that. “Do you have any thoughts on what to do if they attack?”, he asked plaintively, wringing his forelimbs. “I know this is a big ship with big guns, but…”

Rhuar shrugged. “Captain, I’m just banking on our asses running out of here as fast as we can after our fearless leaders come back.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “I hope they do come back.”

Qktk said nothing, but gave Rhuar a pained look and watched the dots gather into a red mass on the display.

Anja shouldered through another door, sending an echoing crash through the room beyond and raising a cloud of choking dust. Blood dripped from her armor and sword, dried flakes fluttering to the ground as she moved relentlessly through the bunker. They had not encountered any resistance past the laboratory with Sophia’s body, and Anja’s tension was bleeding over into her movements. Jesri had seldom seen her this angry, although she could scarcely blame her - the sight of Sophia’s eyeless gaze still haunted her vision as she advanced, lending a sinister aspect to every dark corner and obscured alcove.

They were moving through some sort of administrative area, consoles and primitive displays crowding desktops overflowing with charts and printouts. Offices lined the side of the hallway, but no movement came from within - this area seemed to have been abandoned or evacuated. Turning the corner they reached a sudden end to the hallway, a large double-door leading into a spacious office with soft lighting and luxurious furniture - and one occupant.

Anja slammed through the door to loom over the Ysleli sitting calmly behind his wooden desk, tossing a small reflective sphere between his spindly yellow hands. “Come in, come in,” he wheezed thinly, displaying needle-point teeth in a gruesome smile. “I’ve been waiting for you for some time.”

Anja stopped short, taken aback by the lack of reaction to her terrifying entrance. Her implacable advance had not spared much time for observation, but she now took the time to survey the room around her. Well-made furniture was placed in a loose ring around a low table in the center of the richly carpeted floor. Against the wall were several displays featuring restored Terran technology or curiosities - a jeweled music box sat on a lit pedestal, glittering prettily, while another rack held a matched set of three naval service rifles.

A sharp intake of breath from Jesri drew Anja’s attention to the back of the room, where a display occupied a place of honor among the collection. A nude humanoid figure in a delicate arabesque pose was lit gently from behind and below, a serene smile fixed on its prettily restored face. Auburn hair cascaded from its head in ringlets, shimmering in the display lights.

Jesri’s hands tightened on her gun until the material of her gloves creaked in protest. “Violet,” she whispered.

Anja whirled back towards the Ysleli, swiping her sword through the desk and reducing it to kindling. He was thrown into the corner, colliding with a display of vases and reducing them to shards that sprinkled over his slumped body.

“That’s annoying,” he said, levering himself into a sitting position. “Do you think you could refrain from further violence for a moment while we speak?”

Jesri stared at the slender alien - not only was he unharmed by a blow that should have sheared him in two, he was addressing them in English rather than Yslel. Her rifle came up and she squeezed a burst of fire at his head. The shots took him in the cheek, blasting the thin yellow skin to shreds and revealing an unblemished white-silver surface below. He gave her a reproachful look.

“Really, ladies, it was a simple request,” he muttered, straightening the remains of his chair and sitting down. The tatters of his face hung loosely down from his jaw, revealing the back rows of needle teeth set into shining metal bones.

“What are you?”, growled Anja, her free hand opening and closing menacingly.

The little alien gave her half of a wry smile. “Try to keep up,” he said, “I should think that’s obvious. Here they call me Administrator Trelir,” he said dismissively, a hand to his chest, “but more relevant to our discussion is my position as Emissary to Ysl.”

Jesri stared. “You’re the Gestalt,” she said accusingly, eliciting a wave of short, barking laughter from Trelir.

“Oh, goodness, no,” he chortled. “Merely a grain of sand on the beach, a pebble adorning the mountain. A representative. An Emissary, quite simply.”

“What are you doing here?”, Anja shot back, her frame vibrating with barely restrained violence.

“Just a bit of follow-through, some due diligence around the actions of your former employers,” he said lightly. “Nothing too important, but it’s good practice to tie up loose ends.” He tilted his head to the side, and a gigantic blast door slammed down to trap them in the room.

“Now,” Trelir said evenly, leaning forward across the ruins of his desk, “I have made my report to the greater Confluence. Please make yourselves comfortable while we await a response.”

The display flickered to life again, throwing odd reflections from Qktk’s shell as he drew himself up in the captain’s chair. The Ysleli who now appeared had mottled yellow-brown skin, thin scars tracing across his face. His dark eyes were hard and wary, possessed of an unmistakable competence - and exhaustion.

“You address Tarl,” he said gruffly, “warfather to His Royal Majesty Sitrl, long life and glory to the King.”

Qktk took a steadying breath and kept his eyes focused on the screen. “Warfather,” he said, relieved to hear the even tone of his voice, “I am shipmaster Qktk. I trust you can understand my words?”

Tarl inclined his head. “Yes, shipmaster. Your command of Yslel is impressive.”

Qktk didn’t feel like clarifying. His mind flicked back over a hundred tense hours spent in plush back rooms and noisy bars, cajoling and negotiating deals out of counterparts not inclined to take a Htt seriously. The watchword, as ever, was confidence. He had learned from the best how to deal with these prideful warriors, he reminded himself.

“Quite,” he said dismissively, gesturing to the side. “But beside the point. I see you have marshalled your forces, such as they are.”

Tarl’s face darkened. “It is not becoming of a shipmaster to sully honorable discourse with insults.” He leaned closer to the screen, looming in Qktk’s view. “I trust you will provide us satisfaction,” he growled menacingly.

Qktk stared back with studied nonchalance, even as his mind raced. Apologies were weakness, ignoring a challenge was weakness, so…

“The only insult, warfather,” he leered, contempt dripping from the title, “is the sad band of craven fools who appear before me. Do you believe that your assemblage of tin cans and pointed sticks can stand against my might?”

Rhuar glanced at Qktk in alarm as Tarl seemed to swell with rage. “You question the courage of a blooded warfather, insect?”, he hissed, his skin flushing a darker yellow.

“Oh, I should not impugn your courage, of course,” he said airily, “I would be terrified to face me in that ramshackle collection of plating you call a warship. One wonders what your unblooded grub of a fleetmaster is thinking, providing his esteemed warfather with such a laughable assortment of flotsam.”

Rhuar’s eyes were open wide, his exoskeletal arms waving in emphatic warning. Tarl was glaring at the viewscreen in an apoplectic rage. “You arrogant worm,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous. “You dare-!”

Qktk cut the feed and leaned back in his chair, breathing heavily. “I’m really not cut out for this,” he wheezed.

“Captain, what the fuck?”, Rhuar exclaimed, worry evident in his wide eyes. “You just insulted the largest military fleet ever! They’re going to murder us multiple times.”

Qktk shook his head. “The dockmaster at the old station gave me some tips on dealing with Ysleli traders once. Being rude demonstrates superiority and control, in their eyes. Insults keep them off-balance, but their sense of honor frowns on being provoked to physical violence by words. When they come back they’re distracted and you can get a better price out of them.”

Rhuar goggled at him. “Captain, we are not trying to save on a pallet of nutrient mix!”, he shouted. “These fuckin rage lizards *started out* wanting to murder us. Fuck knows what they’re thinking about doing after talking to the most infuriating version of you for an hour.”

“Trust me on this, Mr. Rhuar,” Qktk said sagely. “The dockmaster was very clear about their code. As long as you do not insult their children, their gods or their king you will always have a chance to smooth it over. Our goal is to buy time until Anja and Jesri get back, and every second we keep them angry and distracted is another that they may use to complete their mission. If we can keep them from establishing the terms of combat with us, they will not fight.”

“If you say so,” said Rhuar doubtfully. “Seems to me like they’re about as angry as angry gets.”

Qktk chittered. “No, I think we’re still fine. They should be calling back any minute now. In fact-” He reached over and toggled the viewscreen, displaying their Ysleli contact.

Only it wasn’t Tarl. A massive Ysleli sat on the screen, lounging on an ornate throne some distance from the camera. His muscular bulk was draped in fine cloth and furs, but gleaming metal armor peeked out from underneath. His yellow skin was lined with age, eyes glinting with hard-won experience and a predatory savvy that lanced through the viewscreen to tickle all of Qktk’s long-buried flight instincts. One clawed hand drummed its fingers idly on a Ysleli skull, of which several were encrusted with jewels and affixed to his throne.

“You address the King,” he rumbled somewhat unnecessarily. “I am Sitrl, sovereign of Ysl, champion of Ysl, protector of Ysl.” His eyes flashed. “Word of you has reached my ears.”

Qktk was having a very hard time maintaining his calm facade. Rhuar was not trying.

Sitrl inspected one of his glossy, sharp claws. “My warfather says you named the fleetmaster an unblooded grub earlier,” he said casually, “which gives me pause because I am the fleetmaster.”

He looked back at the camera, his deep black eyes boring into Qktk. “Your powerful ship and hideous visage may cow my subordinates, but I am the King. You name me unblooded? A bold claim, to be sure, but one easily proven false.” His hand contracted, shattering the skull it rested on. “I will show you your own blood as the proof, every last drop of it. And then, shipmaster - we will discuss the punishment for spreading lies.”

The transmission terminated, and the cloud of red dots on the tactical display began to move slowly towards the Grand Design.

“Mr. Rhuar,” Qktk said weakly, “I will allow that I may have made a miscalculation.”