Sama Rantha, Fighting Action Scientist! Reed Richards wishes he could figure FTL tech and subsystems while engaging in mass slaughter and wide-scale coordination of logistical efforts military and otherwise...

The Markspace meant I was needed for cognitive leaps, not hands-on messing with stuff, which I could direct other hands to be about doing for me, and all the corollary work associated with it. I literally had no excuse not to be out there and adding to the death tolls being inflicted on the invaders... which hardly left me out of the communication loop.

Another generation of Briggs Brothers had been born, and were being carefully Leveled up by their siblings. Certainly the xenos, ‘vores, and pslaved were oceans of Karma waiting to be harvested, but a futuristic battlefield is much more unforgiving than a primitive one, given the power of one-shotting stuff, so care had to be taken. The fact they couldn’t Level every day despite how much stuff they slaughtered and had to take the slow route was also annoying, but at least they had tons of Karma left to Name their Weapons and/or Armor, which got those on the road to improvement fast.

The Briggs Brothers were the most vulnerable, of course, being big targets and yet still starting as Ones. Happily, their brothers were more than happy to make power armor suits for them to get them through those dangerous early Levels, which gave them a lot of protection as they built up their own Gear to a Level until they didn’t need a hand-out anymore, and could pass it on. Greater Soulbound Phrenic-Ward armor was pretty damn useful against the enemies we were facing...

Duke Parablum was effectively the final strategic authority on the planet at this time, given how the command structure of so much of the Planetary Guards from the various megacities and kiloplexes had been compromised, and the general uselessness of the Planetary Governor tossing parties in high society while the planet burned. At the Duke’s order, a city would cease to exist, once the ability to take it back and rescue the inhabitants exceeded their value, and the Governor would just sign off without even reading the order.

That didn’t mean the cities would necessarily be bombed, as the preferred method of wiping a fallen city was virus bombs delivered into the pumping stations and waters, psychically effective and drawn to psionic entities like moths to flames. As ‘vores and Xenos alike had their minds consumed and fell apart to the viruses, they naturally did fun things like detonate the city’s reactors, implode the Shields of the cities, and spread their own contagions everywhere to make the city uninhabitable on every level.

Warp, Necroic, and Axiomatic Events were going off all over as the surges of psychic trauma from the living and dead spurred Incursion events. The Xenos couldn’t consume negatively-charged biomatter, and treated the undead like infections that had to be cut out and burned. Warp entities happily killed Xenos and ‘vores like they did everyone else. Axiomites did pretty much the same with everything that didn’t fit their aesthetic, which was basically everything not of animated technology.

The viruses had no effect on any of the Events, so even if the city was wiped of invaders, it could be left crawling with demons, Warped and Possessed humans and objects, animated technology killing everything, and uncountable numbers of undead of all sizes and types infesting a city of the dead.

The only way to mass-clear a City of the Dead was full fusion carpet bombing from orbit, and it would take some really deep penetration to clear out the Underspires, possibly anti-matter strikes to really rip all that durasteel out and send all the otherplanar stuff and their energies back into the Warp. It would get a lot more annoying if the Axiomites animated the ruins of the Shield Umbrellas and got them back up and operating...

Or, as the Ranthas saw it, they became high-level Karma zones not in a Warp Zone for improving and blooding the troops.

The infrastructure of a megacity or kiloplex was incredibly valuable, and recovering it was extremely important, if at all possible. Duke Parablum was actually amazed to learn that it really wasn’t all that hard to do, if time-consuming... but time wasn’t really an issue at this point.

This wasn’t a Siege anymore, it was just attrition... and the enemy couldn’t gain any new numbers after virus bombs removed viable biomatter, and the Warp and undead took the rest.

Then there was vivic fire.

Vivic fire purged both the virus agents and the xenos contagions, and sealed the psychic trauma and planar instabilities that came from the conflicts. Killing off the undead debilitated the Warped, and killing off the Warped removed the harmonic dissonance that brought the Axiomites into being, which meant they wouldn’t be reinforced if they were killed, either.

Vivic fire and Feeding the Land, the purgative of the Far Future.

On the heels of that revelation, knowledge of vivic fire leapt across the stars very suddenly and thoroughly. The psionic circuitry necessary to place it on a Weapon was transmitted to every Weapon forger and psionic organization, starting with the Mentat, Coronal, and Umbral organizations on the Subsector Seat, then the Sector Crownworld, and four major Forgeworlds. It was offered free to every trader captain, encoded into every Imperial database possible, and every Imperial Legion and Army supplier, storehouse, and working psion was entitled to learn the pattern for nothing.

Astropaths sent news of the Pattern singing out into the Void, with explicit orders to spread knowledge of it to everyone interested in it, store it in multiple media, and send it out further. Every starship transiting between systems was ordered in no uncertain terms to make sure whatever system they ended up in had knowledge of vivic fire.

The number of terrorist incidents and Warp incidents at astropath stations and Beacons skyrocketed across this side of the Rift. Alas for them, Marked Beacon psions and Nulls had been dispatched slowly and steadily from Janus III for over two years to anchor key worlds and bases across the entire Sector under quiet Umbran and Coronal impetus, and instead of preventing the spread of the knowledge, the Warp found the knowledge going out from those places, instead of stopped from coming in!

Vakker-tech was being produced in many places under license by this time. While it wasn’t as powerful against the Warp as Rantha-tech, it was still appreciably better than standard AMT against the Warp. The vivic psionic circuits were also easily duplicated and didn’t have any odd constraints, and while there were kerfluffles here and there with various voices stridently arguing against unproven psi-tech and long-range ramifications, those didn’t last very long... frequently because the strongest opponents to its implementation were often minions of the Warp knowing or unknowing, and the Umbrans found them wonderful targets to investigate and quietly remove.

It very, very quickly became the most eagerly sought-after enhancement for mindblades across the entire sector, every Coronal Knight wanting the effect for use against the Warp, Demons, Undead, and Axiomatics, and those who worked with them.

The very obvious and violent reaction of the Warp to the spread of this knowledge only reaffirmed how potent it was, and even more focus was put on production and dissemination of the technology.

Both the Mekkers and the Mentats tried to establish a claim on the psitech, given its prized usefulness, and instead found the license held firmly by both the Coronals and Umbrans, and held flat open. There would be no charge for learning the Pattern, and any who wished to do so was welcome to.

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“Elvar Corsair Dust Between Stars, this is Coronal Guard Captain Tiffany Rantha of the Coronal ship Bared Saber. If you could kindly decloak and respond to our hail.”

Needle beams lit up the void, spreading out wide and rapidly narrowing down around a section of space that seemed to hold nothing. The sleek Coronal ship that had zipped in out of nowhere to a place conveniently in a very underpowered firing arc from its target waited patiently.

The fact she was speaking in fluent Elvar, complete to three melodies, was probably as important as the fact her ship had suddenly landed in a very threatening position and had knowledge of where her target was.

There was a ripple, and the needle beams cut out as the delicate and colorful solar sails of the Elvar vessel came into open view.

The sweeping and graceful lines of the Elvar sunsails were mutable, with the solar sails almost perfectly reconfigurable to tap the energies of a heliosphere. It was an art and science the Elvar excelled in above all other species, and which made their ships potentially the fastest sublight travelers in space, other than the inertialess Tekrons. They were also quite beautiful, small compensation when they came sweeping out of the stars to strike their prey, and then fled beyond reach of retribution.

The fact they had been snuck up on was certain to be rankling them. Tiffany smiled to herself.

“Reply coming, Captain,” Coms Lieutenant Symma said in a voice that would not change if a Great Old One manifested before them.

“On holo.” Tiffany crossed her legs and was looking right into the bemused and cocky eyes of the elvar captain as his image materialized before her.

“Captain Rantha. Your grasp of our language is impressive.” His melodies indicated arrogance, confidence in his position regardless, and she should be honored to be speaking their tongue fluently.

“A minor sidestudy in my spare time,” she replied back, melodies indicating she had seen his arrogance, his confidence, and his racism, and she was politely ignoring it, and he was being rude, because, “Who am I addressing?”

“I am Captain Ethyviale Hevalosivthiallequiate...” his last name went on for a full thirty seconds, and she just lifted an eyebrow as he watched her keenly, and realized she really could understand all the melodies and the underlying story and lineage of his ancestry perfectly... and could even if he used the true long form.

“The Sunhawk,” she shortened it all down the instant he finished, and he couldn’t even find offense, as that was indeed his corsair title. “It seems I have contacted a celebrity. Well, I am sure you are here for some opportunistic raiding while system defenses are down, but I am not here to reduce you to gossamer scraps today, Captain.” Melodies indicating serious, serious, and serious. “It should be a rhetorical question, but have you heard of vivic fire, Captain Sunhawk?”

His eyes flashed despite himself. “Your communications are full of mention of it. It would have been difficult not to, Captain.” Interest, suspicion, curiosity.

Tiffany reached over and picked up a simple knife, which suddenly burst into heavy, almost liquid unwhite fire, displayed it for the elvar captain. She then picked up a glittering datacrystal, held it up for him, and set that back down. “Coms, initiate data download to the elvar vessel. Captain, if you will clear a point-to-point object teleport, I will send this data schematic of the vivic rune circuitry to you, along with the knife, through it. If you would prefer I use a messenger drone, I will do so instead. You have the word of the Coronals that there are no tricks or subterfuge involved.”

His eyes narrowed. The word of the Coronals was a formidable thing even to the elvar. Even when the Coronals came out on the losing end of keeping their word, they held to it, and it was a fact that the elvar both took advantage of and respected... and took a sly delight in when the Coronals used it to their own advantage at times.

He did not answer immediately, his bright, almost glowing golden eyes studying her. She looked back without any problems, regardless of the influence he was attempting to exert through the link, even as his ship maneuvered into a more advantageous position.

There was muted singsong speech in the background, and he glanced away to listen. His eyes were very interested and calculating as he looked back at her.

“Teleportation will be fine,” he said, relishing, expectant, daring. Tiffany nodded at Beacon Tsina, who took the dagger and crystal in her hands, closed her eyes, and reached out across the void to find the dimensional beacon flaring out there. She established contact and a neutral handshake, offered up the two objects, and they were accepted and vanished from her hands.

A moment later, the dagger was handed to the elvar captain, who held it up and watched the strange unwhite flames falling off the length of it. “A gesture of goodwill, Captain Rantha,” he acknowledged. Paternal, amused, wondering where it was going, and what she was trying to bribe him with...