After Anya had quit the USAIF, she had been told in no uncertain terms: zero contact. President Hanover had acted like a surly teen as he’d initially ordered her to delete Anya from her menu entirely, but MacDougal had stepped in. So long as Samaira and Chell and Pan had Anya in their menus, they could track her. Losing that would be a huge waste of intel, and Hanover had agreed.

But the order remained: no contact.

Samaira had tried making a few discrete calls through the menu at first, despite the orders, but Anya hadn’t answered. Was she done with all of them? Not just the USAIF? Why?

She could see Anya quitting out of irritation with the government, had expected it since Hawaii, to be honest, but why wasn’t she talking to her or Chell?

She didn’t have much time to ponder the whys of it all. MacDougal told her that they were getting calls from other countries about hosts quitting, or just ghosting them. Brody, Zoya, Jiro, Bernard and Amahle, Kemuel. The final straw came when Pan called her in the middle of the night, sniffling and fidgeting, and told her he would miss her a lot, but he wanted to go with Anya to Mars.

Samaira hadn’t known what to think after that. Quitting was one thing, but going to Mars? With those other hosts who seemed to not care about upsetting the newfound peace they’d just gotten?

But again, there was no time for whys.

China, Russia, the UK, and a number of other countries had all called each other and Hanover. They all had intel that their hosts were either going to Mars, or were worried those that remained would follow suit.

They couldn’t just sit back and watch.

General Huang had made the proposal for a joint task force of sorts: a coalition of willing countries,united against Martian interference and disruption. Mars had staked their claim, and Earth needed to do the same.

And with twelve countries——America, the UK, Spain, China, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Finland, Thailand, and India——signing the initial agreement over a teleconference in the middle of the night, the Allied Earth Service was formed.

Its mission statement was simple: to protect Earth——its people and its resources——from extra-planetary invasion and interference. Unfortunately, every world leader classified the menu systems as resources, since they had fallen to Earth, and anybody taking them off-world was in violation of some hastily scribbled laws re-classifying hosts as “stewards of government assets.”

Samaira and Chell had balked at the definition, and Samaira had warned MacDougal that this sort of thing would rub every host on the planet the wrong way. MacDougal had said her hands were tied: they couldn’t allow people with such destructive potential to do as they liked. It would be chaos. When the aliens had been invading it had been do-or-die. Their backs had been to the wall. Now, in the absence of an obvious threat and with the Engineers threatening to quarantine the entire human race, they could not afford to let random hosts run amok. All of them must be accounted for, held to standard.

Samaira agreed with the basic idea. They had fifteen months——no, less than that now, fourteen months and change——to prove Earth could keep itself together and progress peacefully. Dividing themselves would prove nothing except their inability to maintain control. And a species that could not control themselves…well…

Samaira knew it made sense on paper, but people like Anya, and especially this Corva woman and the other Martian hosts, they weren’t the sort of people who fit on paper.

She knew General Huang, President Hanover, and a few others would be keen to close their fists around the hosts, and expect them to follow orders like good soldiers. Maybe if Samaira was there, she could lessen the hostility, talk sense into Anya, get Pan to realize this would just lead to more fighting.

That’s what she told herself as she and the other hosts of the newly formed AES flew to the Sahara. Hanover had told her that an “informant” had said the rogue hosts (no longer merely independent, but fully rogue, now) would be meeting there with the Martians and they were to stop them at all costs. They were accompanied by a few squads of Huang’s latest battle droids, all of them armed to their mechanical eyeballs, or visors, or whatever they had.

“Do not kill anybody. Our primary goal is the disabling of any Martian vessels. The rogue hosts will have their families and friends with them and will likely be unwilling to fully engage in combat,” the leader of their little squad said as they approached the meeting point. He had been introduced by Huang and MacDougal as Sergeant Han Bohai. He was in his late thirties or mid-forties, and had his hair shaved down to the scalp. He was stocky and compact. Han had, according to Huang, been in charge of domestic defense during the invasion, staying within Chinese borders and mostly acting as a guard to members of the government.

“This feels wrong,” Chell whispered to Samaira.

“I know. We’ve just got to try and stop it from getting worse. We can talk some sense into them,” Samaira whispered back. She didn’t manage to convince herself.

They had arrived minutes later, and the aircraft hovered to a stop and the droids disembarked, then Samaira and the other hosts. Galtero flew in behind them seconds later. Samaira’s throat was tight as she saw Anya, Pan, Immonen, and others assembled around a sharp, chrome spaceship along with at least a hundred civilians.

“Anya! Pan! Don’t!” she shouted. She already saw Anya’s fists clenching and Pan backing away. Immonen stared at them, wide-eyed.

“You are in violation of Earth airspace and engaged in illegal extraction of citizens!” Han said. “You will surrender yourselves to the authority of the Allied Earth Service and turn over all weapons and technology you have. Comply now or we will use force!”

Anya muttered something and then the Indian host, Vaastukaar, stepped forward, his hands raised.

“My friends,” he said. “We mean no harm. The only people with us are those that have come willingly. They are free people, able to do as they wish.”

“Several of those people have pledged themselves to governments belonging to the Allied Earth Service and have not been granted permission to leave the planet,” Han said. “You will all step away from that craft and return to your home countries, now.”

“Bloody hell, that’s not the way to get anything done,” Mona said beside Samaira.

“Sergeant,” Samaira whispered a few paces behind Han, “perhaps we can just talk about this first?”

“I am talking,” Han snapped. He had begun to glow with some sort of energy. It wasn’t aetheric, so far as Samaira could sense. The other Chinese hosts were powering up as well. One of them transformed into a sort of purple mist while another became covered in sand and rock. The other two, twins, merged with each other and doubled in size.

“Sam,” Chell whispered beside Samaira, “the Sergeant, he’s scared. It’s coming off him in waves. So is pretty much everybody except that Vaastukaar guy, Jiro, Zoya, and Mona. Nobody wants a fight.”

Looking at the Sergeant’s taut pose, hearing his booming voice, Samaira wouldn’t have guessed he was anything close to scared. But now that Chell mentioned it, she saw a slight tremor in his hands.

Samaira’s highest stat was her intelligence, at 87. It didn’t make her a super genius, but it did allow her to radically compartmentalize her mind, and have multiple different trains of thought running all at once. It was like a computer using different programs, all independent of one another but all functioning as they should.

Samaira was running through possible scenarios. Any of the ones she was thinking of that started with combat ended poorly. Best case, the two sides were forced to retreat with no casualties but even less trust and more hostility. Worst case, a lot of civilians died, maybe some hosts, and Earth and Mars would be officially enemies. There were variations on those extremes, but nothing that Samaira would have called good.

At the same time, Samaira was looking at anyway to resolve this non-violently. Options were slim. Chell had said people were scared, but scared people sometimes didn’t think very rationally, especially if their family and friends were being threatened. If Sergeant Han so much as twitched toward the civilians, their accompanying hosts might go berserk.

All of this ran through Samaira’s thoughts within the space of a few heartbeats, and the answer seemed pretty obvious.

Han raised his subtly shaking hands towards the crowd. Vaastukaar began to reach for one of the chrome bands on his wrists.

Samaira stepped in front of Han, facing the sergeant from a foot away, his glowing hand pointed at her chest.

“Stop,” Samaira said, then turned to look back at Vaastukaar. “You too. Just stop.”

“You are in the way,” Han said. “And your meaningless rank of ‘Captain’ in the USAIF does not apply here so you are not fit to——”

“This isn’t about orders. It’s about not making things worse,” Samaira said and kept her voice low. She wasn’t a fool. She knew that embarrassing Han, or making it look like he wasn’t in control would make things worse. Ideally she would’ve been able to do this in complete privacy but a low tone and neutral body language would have to do.

“I know you’re not feeling good about this. None of us are and Chell can sense it,” Samaira continued and Han, for the first time since he’d boarded the plane in New York, appeared to relax by a fraction. His hand still glowed and was aimed at the crowd, but the subtle shaking abated, and his fingers did not appear so clenched.

“We weren’t briefed on what to do with this many civilians, and the protocols for hosts who aren’t signed on with a government are non-specific. We need to call General Han and Director MacDougal before we do anything rash,” Samaira continued. Han glanced sideways at his fellow Chinese hosts. They all looked to him, clearly unsettled by how quickly things had just escalated.

“Yes. A call wouldn’t hurt,” Han said and Samaira let out a slow sigh of relief. He began to lower his hand, and Samaira heard Vaastukaar mutter something behind her.

That was when it happened. The blue gem Samaira kept in the center of her tiara began to glow and become hot. The protective runes she had put within it filled with energy as they were activated by the automatic defensive charms she had layered within it. Samaira didn’t bother to question what was happening or where it was coming from, she didn’t have the time.

Instead she used every layer of her mind to craft as many defensive barriers of aether around her as she could. The gem in her tiara cracked, and shattered into a thousand fragments just as her aetheric shields protected her from the next invisible assault. She felt pressure on her head, on her thoughts,, and tried to shout a warning to Han, to anybody who could hear it.

Then the pressure left her, rebounded off her last few shields, and she saw Han wince and raise his still glowing hand.

“No!” Samaira said and stepped to the side, between the hand and the crowd behind her. There was a flash of light, and Samaira had just enough time to sense her remaining, weakened aetheric shields shatter before it struck her full in the face, and everything went dark.

Anya had spent the last minute trying to ignore the burn in her chest. Her instincts told her a fight was present, that at last she would have somebody to trade a few blows with. It would be fun, like sparring. But she knew that wasn’t helpful, and that doing anything violent now would be nothing short of disastrous. So instead of the sun in her chest, she focused on the light in her mind. The Crown of the Firmament was a positive thing, or at least she liked to think so.

Her Sun’s Heart was a primeval force, knowing neither good nor evil, only the desire to flare, to glow, to spread and burn and explode. The Crown, on the other hand, knew peace. It understood tranquility, and shedding a gentler kind of light. Listening to her Sun’s Heart was fun, like a rock concert. Listening to the Crown was more soothing, like a gentle choir. She was more inclined to turn up the rock music, but nobody looked like they were in the mood for a mosh pit.

Anya had started to step forward when Samaira had put herself between the crowd and that sergeant guy. She couldn’t hear anything, but it seemed to be working, whatever she was saying. They whispered to each other for several long moments and then…

“Be ready,” Vaastukaar had said to Tiresias, and she had nodded.

That was when Samaira had twitched, taken a wobbly step back, and then Han had raised his hand, pointed it at her head and…

“No!” Immonen shouted.

Anya’s cognition acceleration allowed her to take in the details.

How the aetheric shields Samaira had around her flared pale blue as the light from Han’s fingers shattered them.

How the light blasted her in the side of her head.

How Samaira’s blood came out of the side of her skull in a long, elegant drape of crimson, stark against the cloudless blue desert sky.

How she didn’t fall to the ground, but crumpled, a mass of limbs only loosely connected to her body.

The way the sand puffed up around her and became dark as her blood seeped into it.

And then there was no more choir, no tranquility.

There was the beat of her hearts, and the rapid tempo that demanded action.

Anya didn’t speak, she merely thrust her hand out and condense enough heat from her Sun’s heart and the area around them that the burning sands became icy cold in half a second. She unleashed the blast at Han before anybody could stop her. It shot out from her palm, no bigger than a tennis ball, and Han only just threw himself to the side.

Not quickly enough, as the burning orb of fire and light smacked into some sort of forcefield he threw up at the last second, shattered it, and then struck him in the arm. He screamed as his arm was blown off just above the elbow, and Anya’s fireball continued past to the plane, and destroyed it in one go. It exploded, sending those nearby under shields or barriers for cover, and trashed several of the Chinese military bots.

Anya barely noticed. She had gone from fury to shock in seconds. She’d just been so angry at what the sergeant had done. She hadn’t thought. She hadn’t even considered…

But she’d just blown a man’s arm off. He lay on the sand, staring in panic at the steaming, raw, red and black mound of ruined flesh.

“Anya! Stop!” Immonen said, and ran in front of her. He gave her a pleading look, then charged toward Samaira.

“No! Bohai!” one of the other Chinese hosts wailed and knelt beside him. It was a woman a bit younger than him, covered in stones and sand, save for her face, which was pale with terror.

“Impressive, but inadvisable,” Vaastukaar said and glanced at Anya.

“I didn’t mean——” Anya stammered.

“It doesn’t matter. Droids, facilitate exit, post-haste!” Vaastukaar said and waved at his ship. The civilians began to hurry aboard, assisted by the droids and the hosts.

“No! He’s with them!” the Chinese woman kneeling over the sergeant said and pointed at Immonen as he laid his hands on Samaira. She raised her hand and the sand around Immonen swept up and he made a choked, gagging sound.

“Fuck!” Anya shouted and leapt forward. She was met by several droids, all of which she destroyed in an instant. A huge, monstrous creature with exposed fleshy muscles and a head like the skull of a goat appeared towering before her. It had a great sweeping tail and cloven hooves. Anya recognized it as one of Harrison’s demons. She didn’t know if Harrison was aware of what she and Renn had planned or not, but she didn’t care if this was some bit of play-acting for the crowd or what. Sam had been hurt, Garreth was in danger.

She blasted the demonic creature Harrison had summoned, but her flames did surprisingly little. She realized the demon must have some kind of innate resistance to fire, and then just punched it hard enough in the gut as her fist swirled with shining light and whirling vortexes of gravity. The huge, burly goat-demon was sent flying hundreds of yards away, and Anya had a clear shot at the Chinese woman moving the sand.

“Anya please!” Chell said and grabbed her arm. Anya was only dimly aware of her at the last moment, as well as everything else going on around her.

Galtero’s mech had been surrounded by dozens of Vaastukaar’s droids. Mona had summoned flocks of the undead to fight off a wave of elementals Bernard had summoned. Yai had created a towering mushroom creature that was trying to stomp on Jiro. Pan had surrounded himself with golems and was hiding from several more of the Chinese military bots and two more of the hosts.

“Anya, she’s okay,” Immonen said behind her, gasping a little. That was when she noticed the last of the Chinese hosts, two twin girls no older than their early twenties, had their hands on the woman holding the sergeant. They were both pleading with her in rapid Mandarin. She lowered her hand, and the sands calmed around her. Immonen staggered forward to the wounded sergeant and touched his stump. It began to heal, and the bone started to extend and regrow the arm.

“It will be okay,” Immonen said.

“No more! Cease!” Vaastukaar said behind them. His droids soared away from Galtero, his mecha intact but damaged, and merged with the chrome spaceship. “We leave, now! Are you coming or not?”

Anya looked back at him, then Immonen, Chell, the other hosts, and Samaira. Her friend was in the sand, her dried blood turned a rusty brown. Her eyes fluttered open. She wanted nothing more but to go to her, tell her she was sorry, that she would help her get better.

But then things would just progress as they had been. Things would probably get worse, and they’d still be in the dark. And in fifteen months, when the Engineers came back, Anya didn’t want to be left wondering if she had done everything she could to preserve peace.

Anya knelt beside Samaira and brushed some of her dark indigo hair away from where she had been struck. Immonen’s healing had been hasty, likely only just saving her from death. Her hair was uneven and ragged on the side she had been hit, and there was still a mark where the light had struck her skull. The gem in the center of her tiara had been shattered by something. Anya put her hand on Samaira’s shoulder.

“Sam…Samaira please,” Anya said. Pan waddled over.

“Is she okay?” he asked, his voice trembling.

“Ms. Anya, are you coming or not?” Vaastukaar asked, clearly impatient.

“In a minute!” Anya snapped, then looked down as Samaira groaned and blinked her eyes open. “Thank god.”

“Anya…psychic,” Samaira said.

“Chell’s okay,” Anya reassured her.

“No…psychic. Domination? Something…Careful…” Samaira said and then passed out again.

“Anya,” Immonen said to her. “You have to go. I’ll be in touch.”

Anya glanced up and saw several of the Chinese hosts glaring at her. The sergeant had passed out, but his arm was coming back. Mona stepped forward, looked at her, and made a subtle jerk of her chin toward the distant spaceship.

“C’mon Pan,” Anya said and took Pan’s claw as she began to hurry them both toward the ship.

“Why? What’s going on? Why was everybody so angry? Is Samaira gonna be okay? What about that other man? We can’t just leave them!” Pan said.

“We got to for now, but they’ll be okay. Garreth’s looking after them,” Anya said as she climbed the steps with Pan. “It’ll be okay.”

The doors shut behind them with a quiet hiss and Anya let out a shuddery breath.

Her second lie of the day.