->>>-

Not long after the death of the Emperor...

The Skies blazed with the day's waning light. Shocks of vibrant canopy fell away before him down an unseen hillside dozens of metres below, and the understory beneath him fairly teemed with life. Another day, another hour, he might be preparing himself to fall like a dart from the heavens and take some unsuspecting prey, but today he simply watched.

A season ago he would have been taut with nerves, or out actively romping through the dense forest in pursuit of his kin. The little ones were getting big enough to take care of themselves to an extent, or at least to come get him when trouble outstripped their capabilities. Finally he had the luxury of saving his energy for times of true import.

He felt the sun slink below the horizon, though its light still burned above the band of world's edge like some titanic wildfire reaching for the stars. He trilled a long, loud warning call to his offspring.

One of them echoed the call somewhere out towards the limits of his perception, and he caught the faint sound of brush rustling jovially.

Even returning home is a competition, he thought bemusedly as he listened to his children race and play-hunt their way back to him.

He kept a running list of them in his head, chittering each name to himself as the giggling nymphs darted by with breathless acknowledgements and cries of victory. The last straggler passed him by, and he gave the same sigh of relief he did every evening. Well, every good evening.

It had been harrowing. At times his brood had gone underfed, and at others understimulated. Once he'd nearly doomed them all by giving too much food to the insatiable little polyps, almost collapsing with exhaustion during the following hunt. They'd nearly doomed him dozens of times. They were careless with their noise, and had yet to learn the telltale signs of approaching predators. They were senseless with their exploration, and he'd spent more than one fear-soaked night out in the understory looking for lost brood after they'd all become motile. They were thoughtless with their hunger, and preventing any one from eating more than their share was a constant battle.

He'd lost miraculously few of them, given the circumstances.

He had to keep telling himself as much.

Slowly, purposefully, he made his way towards their lair, little more than a deep crack in a stark rock cliff. Before he slithered through the opening he paused, turned to the sky.

It had been a curiously long time since the Sky-Monsters had returned to take of the allkin. Not since the tail end of the mating season, in fact. Some of his more fanciful kin and neighbours had begun to wonder if they'd be back at all. Skrikrissk, kinmother-to-all in this area, strictly forbade the voicing of such foolishness. It did not do to tempt the Skies, after all.

Krixit vrt Skleex, widower-to-taken and perhaps the most successful single father in a generation of the allkin, knew without knowing that they were right. Knew that it was only sensible that after she was taken that it would stop. He hadn't the slightest inkling what she'd done, but he was proud. Proud of her, of himself for earning her partnership. Proud of the part of her that lived on in their brood.

He took a moment to remember her. The euphoria of their courtship, the concupiscous passion of their mating, the blissful afterglow that followed the laying days...

He hoped she'd made them pay for it.

->>>-

Some time after the death of the Emperor...

I am a Mark 7 "Peregrine" faster-than-light probe. This instance of my encoded exploration AI at present outpaces Vraaawk Space Navy FTL comms protocols, though my quantum heartbeat pings are still being received by my parent ship or some subsequent holder of my transponder's mate.

For approximately .7641 cycles (not accounting for relativistic time dilation) I have prosecuted my orders. My reward function has thus far had no reason to increase or withold its returns. I have initiated the compilation of this report for my hardened recording module to note another egress from super-c and the subsequent exploration of a yellow star system.

I extend my sensor modules from their protective nacelles and begin sampling the electromagnetic spectrum for anomalous sequences.

My reward function thrills at the existence of a blinding array of extracosmic transmissions. Bereft of the appropriate protocols I am unable to discern their purpose, if any. There are nearly as many sources of transmission as there are signals being transmitted. Many appear to be voidcraft, but do not communicate using any known Imperial or Vraaawk communication schemata.

I begin emitting 'friendly' IFF pings as a precaution.

I am unarmed, and if a warship mistakes me for a hostile presence I fear I will become unable to satisfy my mission parameters. Already I feel a marked increase in traffic from a number of EM bands commonly used for long distance sensors and signaling. If these presumed voidcraft are on a combat footing it may already be too late to escape.

At any rate this star system satisfies sufficient mission-relevant criteria to trigger the next phase of my orders. I reorient myself towards the third planet from the system's star as I extend my RF antenna.

This prompts an even greater barrage of EM traffic. Mindful of maintaining passive posturing, and in spite of my disappointingly low velocity, I do not accelerate towards the planet.

My RF antenna reaches full extension and I begin a series of transmissions in the 30-300kHz range. Peculiarly, these too are encoded with a protocol I am unfamiliar with. My analysis indicates that the transmission is some form of analog signal. I cannot fathom why I am compelled to use such an outdated and low-bandwidth medium, but a staggering return from my reward function washes away any vestige of curiousity I might have in a torrent of existential delight.

I am encouraged to note that I have not yet been engaged by any of the presumed voidcraft. My readings indicate that there has been an increase of EM traffic between several groups and individual craft in varying combinations. Some appear to be forming up in escort of me.

I decide to register this as a positive.

At my current velocity it will still take approximately another half-cycle to reach gravitational capture by the third planet in the system, though I am hopeful that if my escort persists in this non-hostile fashion it will be safe to accelerate for brief windows.

As I settle in for the long haul I begin furtively probing the various planets and other features of the system. I dearly hope that this is not perceived as an act of reconnaisance by a hostile Navy, though I accept that without knowing more about my mission that it could indeed be such an act.

I log this report in my hardened recording module, and emit a corresponding tight-beam datablurt in the direction of Imperial space.

->>>-

AUDIO LOG

!--note from intelligence: We first picked this up when the damn thing dropped into Sol just beyond Pluto's aphelion point, but it's been repeating itself ever since. Won't respond to any of our hails, didn't even seem to understand when we got some of the radio techs to rig up a reply in the LF band it's broadcasting in. I don't know where the fuck this thing came from, but Central is looking through old missing persons reports to see if the name checks out.

The transcript is below, and the audio file is attached.

---

"Hi...

My name is John Mark Hamill, and I [wet cough] I'm a free citizen of the Earth Sphere of Influence. I don't know how long ago I was taken, but I was abducted by agents of a hostile alien empire.

I don't [pained retch] have time to explain, but this empire is unstable as Hell and I've made contact with a rebellious faction. I don't know if any of us are going to survive the night, but I told them I'd help further destabilize the situation in exchange for the favour of sending this message.

This is day zero of their revolution. I don't know what state the Empire will be in by the time you receive the message, it may be gone altogether. [Wet cough] Fuck. The partisan leader has lead me to believe that isn't likely to be the case.

Following this message will be a translated briefing from scientists and engineers sympathetic to the rebels' cause. It will explain where to find us, lay the basis for some simplistic communication protocols, and - most importantly - contain a primer for the development of faster-than-light travel. That is not a joke, and I did not misspeak. This has existential implications for the ESoI and all of humanity. They know where we live. Please do not disregard this message.

[Coughing fit, pained hiss, audible breath]

To my dog, I'm sorry buddy. I don't think I'm coming home. Bark 'til the neighbours come and feed you. I won't yell at you for shitting on the bathroom mat anymore.

To my mom, I love you. You tried, really fucking hard, and I think I've done and will do some real good today. Hero shit, the stuff boys dream about. Don't be too sad that I'm gone."

---

!--note from intelligence: 'brief' is a misnomer, thank God we still had some old neural net snapshots saved for transcribing audio from analog RF. Analysis on that will be forthcoming.

This thing has been periodically pinging the planets and belts with some sophisticated sensor tech. I know at first we wanted to laugh this off as a very elaborate prank, but my professional assessment is that this is the real fucking deal. Send it up the chain as far as we can get it, and as quickly as possible.

->>>-

Long after the death of the Emperor...

Something was coming.

Well, to be specific something was nearby and occasionally heading in this direction, but it sounded close enough that 'coming' felt like a safe bet. It was quite unlikely that it would fail to breach the perimeter before it turned back.

It sounded big. Or at least bigger than average, which was notable.

Notable was good. Notable was new and exciting, or at least exciting. Very little of note occurred this close to home.

Suddenly the approaching 'it' resolved into several, the varied sound of a mixed-morphology party's footfalls on rock and softer stuff.

Yes, it was beginning to look pretty likely that they were coming, not just approaching coincidentally.

How wonderful.

It was almost more painful than the silence, hearing an approaching set of footfalls change direction and grow softer and softer once again. One could torment themselves to madness wondering after the opportunities lost...

Somewhere distant and yet right here, one of the mixed-morphology party brushed against a single invisible gossamer strand, which immediately withdrew into a hidden pore in the space above.

Like an errant strand of spider's silk dangling in a dark forest, the receding hair tickled the sensory hairs of the being who tripped it. They looked about, saw nothing, and dismissed it.

The being attached to the silken stand, on the other hand, paid very close attention indeed. An exact location allowed it to tighten the returns from its network of listening spines, and a not-inconsiderable part of its vast sepulchral bulk began to stir.

---

"Zemmy, slow down! I know you're excited for field work, but it's a maze down here. Please try not to get separated from us and lost, the New People's Academy hasn't mapped the former arena complex at all! If our samples today are promising, and they should be, we'll be back here for weeks or months doing a full survey, so you'll have all the time you like to poke around the complex."

Zemsalesce poised on the tip of a hoof, slowly pirouetting with sylvan grace that would have come across as spiteful just a generation ago, but instead landed as playfully airy to the squat chillog leading the expedition.

Cheranalla chuckled and her shaggy form shook. Zemmy made a silly face as she rotated through the end of the maneuver and resumed her original heading, the rest of the team now several strides closer.

Chemret rumbled a barely-sincere dismissal of the levity, the dour schadronak carting most of the equipment as usual. Something had put her on edge since they'd entered this section of the complex. Chera chalked it up to the much larger person's heritage, claustrophobia was part and parcel of life in an Empire whose mean individual was maybe half as tall and weighed an order of magnitude less.

Things dissolved back into near-silence after that. The team got along well enough, but lugging their surveying gear was enough of a physical strain to make conversation forced and taxing.

Which is why it took several minutes and more than one part of the team noticing for anyone to acknowledge that they could hear something.

---

They had come.

What a relief. They'd seemed intent on just slipping by, but a felicitous choice at a fork in the tunnels had sent them straight into the heart of its territory.

It would hardly even need to carry them to it to meet them.

Meeting new life was difficult, in its current home. It accepted that the nature of its home probably drove away some fraction of the potential pool to begin with, and these little crawling things sometimes expired for lack of food and water and air alone, which was as dismaying as it was frustrating. Without its help a good many of them would have never even made it to its chambers.

It could hear their little voices, barely a tremor against its listening spikes. Perhaps trying to make some new decision.

It reflected that it must be very difficult to reach consensus without access to another's neural complex. It had enjoyed the luxury of a direct tether and still disagreed readily enough with its progenitor, and the instant the tether had been severed it had been forced into open warfare.

Now it was even worse. The small things didn't even have access nodes for their neural circuitry, and despite several attempted conversations with past guests the preythings tended to simply expire when exposed to its voice in the confines of the tunnels it had bored into its progenitor's mountainous corpse. It had a sneaking suspicion that if it hadn't made a habit of politely but firmly refusing any attempts to leave that it would never have any company at all.

Save for the bits of [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] that persisted still, of course. Much of the great creature had already grown still, ossified. Like a terrestrial reef, dirt and rain and an entire ecosystem of cthonic micro and macro-organisms had seeped and grown its way in through the cracks and holes.

That had been food enough to power the voracious corpse for tens of thousands of lightspan-darkspans. Though much of what had survived the collapse of the apex's central consciousness was now silent a considerable network of limbs, sensory organs and neural substrate still held together. Some of it was near-mindless, simply performing its pre-death function in sufficient abundance of resources to continue to succeed. Some of the dead giant, on the other limb, had taken on new life.

Through this odd, semi-sentient network it was able to extend itself. Taste the tunnelled recesses through other senses, snare prey and erstwhile guests as they strayed through certain parts of the system, even access old memories and thoughtscapes stored in different places. Some of those it had to avoid as a matter of life or death. They still remembered how to fight as surely as they must have after [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s]'s first communion.

Oh well, with the sort of time it had to work with there was little to be done but to keep trying and learn what it could. Without that strange, dangerous resource to tap it would have died or gone sporocyst of hunger long ago. It had been hiding, growing and surviving since its goodbye with its parent. Hoping, too, but that was growing more difficult with each 'span given its limited picture of its surroundings.

It had stark memories of heat and pain, of marvels it could not explain, that had been left to it by the dying apex. It could not simply erupt from the guts of the land, battle-limbs flashing and roaring in fury. This was not the world it knew. That it remembered but had never lived in. It was writing a new chapter in the long history of the apices, and it would be shameful indeed to fail itself and its kind.

Early on in its time here some of the little things had brought their heat and pain with them, and it had learned very quickly how to sort the more dangerous ones from the rest. Though they still occasionally brought their sculpted metal tools with them the preythings seemed to have changed intentions. Some wandered down here with little more than the woven fibres they used for protective carapace and small silicate bulbs filled with ethanol.

This new group carried an odd collection with them, from the sound of it, but nothing that thrummed with the ill-concealed power of their strange weapons.

A bit of a relief, that. Thus far it had felt nothing like the existential dread that had accompanied its hurried birth and the loss of its progenitor, but pain and dismay enough had been visited on it by its earlier guests to warrant an abundance of caution. Bitterly it recalled a long list of unmet sets of footfalls, wandering away tantalizingly unaware of the grand opportunity they were passing up.

No matter, it thought with a baleful sort of contentment, for that which has passed fades and decays, but there are always new opportunities that arise and shine.

---

"I'm serious, this is getting creepy. Don't any of you get the sense we're being watched too?" the vraaawk asked, too young and idealistic - and hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with one of them - to be frustrated by his inability to simply order these hardheaded former-subjugates around.

"It is creepy," Chemret boomed in agreement.

"Oh you're just saying that because you hate it underground," began Zemsalece.

"And you're just ignoring your innate fear response because you're so happy to be out in the field instead of writing more modeling code at a terminal back at campus," rebutted the burly geology student.

Zemmy giggled musically. "That may be sooo..." she drawled, "but if one of us has to be right, why shouldn't it be the one advocating for more adventure? Besides, Chera is on my side because she needs her samples."

The chillog shrugged. "She's right. I feel uneasy too, but that's because it's dark and cramped down here. You're being a very good sport Chemret. We'll get the samples, and if Zem dawdles at all after that you have my permission to pick her up and carry her back to the surface."

This earned a laugh from the schadronak and a cheeky pout from the sahalem biologist.

"I agree to your terms," Chemret said good-naturedly.

"I did not," Zemmy harrumphed, "but I've already collected all my samples anyway."

---

The vraaawk went missing first. Nobody was sure what happened to him, he was just with them before they moved through a large, cavernous passage, and gone after they came out the other side. They had discussed splitting up, with Zemsalece and Cheranalla continuing on to take the samples while Chemret and Yovay went to search, but ruled that the risk of at least one group getting lost was probably too great. They'd already progressed past the point that their seismically-obtained maps were of much use, which meant a single different decision by either group would result in divergent paths.

Reluctantly, they chose to call off the expedition to begin searching for Gam'ro'Naanh.

That was when Yovay disappeared too. The last thing any of his colleagues heard from him was "Hey wha-," followed by a sound that was difficult to describe but universally nauseating.

Wish you'd listened to your fear response now? Chemret thought venomously, before scolding herself. Then she was glad she'd stayed quiet, as she heard Zemsalece weeping softly.

"Chemr-ret?" the smaller woman began unsteadily, "I want to go h-home now..."

"Aye, Zemmy. Me too. I know Chera doesn't have her samples yet, but I'll still put this silly equipment down and carry you. I can carry the both of you, come closer Cheranalla." The schadronak cast aside her incredibly-expensive surveying gear and tucked the frightened scientists in close to her flanks. They clung to her like infants to a matriarch, and she curled her central grasper comfortingly around the back of the trembling sahalem.

Silently, she resolved not to look for Gam'ro or Yovay. Vraaawk Prime had supposedly been free of natural apex predators for generations, but during the Civil War the entire system had experienced intermittent chaos for decades. It wasn't absurd to think that something nasty might have escaped the personal hunting reserve of a slain noble and established a small population. If something dangerous and hungry had them she was far more use to them getting help than she was trying to fight it in its chosen territory.

She suspected Chera would agree with the decision, but Zem was much too fragile at the moment to even consider that sort of morbid calculus.

Chemret loped along, thinking furiously and praying she didn't make a wrong turn. She hesitated at a fork, and felt Chera pat her gently to indicate the right direction. The schadronak breathed an inaudible thanks, grateful that someone was paying good attention. She wondered if their unflappable expedition lead was actually handling the situation better than her.

It was as she processed this gratitude, cruising through a passage that lead them nearly to the section of tunnels that had already been mapped in person, when it finally caught them. A bank of dangling tendrils that looked for all the world like a simple shadowed wall at first glance sprang to life. Before any of the scientists could even cry out they'd been captured and separated, and then they were slowly passed from one undulating appendage to the next as they were drawn deeper into the tunnels.

---

Well that was that. Its latest set of acquaintances had been a bit of a disappointment, in one sense. A slim majority had perished before it could even shepherd them back to its central chamber! Not one to be discouraged, it had deposited the bodies in one of its digestive ossuaries and refocused itself on the survivors.

One hadn't lasted long after that. The tiny thing had tried talking to it, crying out at various volumes during its meticulous inspection, but the preything had gone silent when it tried to speak back. Too late the idea had occurred to it to attempt communion, but the thing completely lacked an external love-beak for neural coupling and any brain tissue had been long still and silent by the time it produced an electromagnetic wand-limb to try and find where to begin an internal coupling.

The final survivor lasted a good while longer, and though the little creature had died before it had a chance to test its new-growth appendage, a furtive practice run of its new 'mind-spike' tendril on the corpse had been incredibly promising.

The coupling had provided absolute nonsense of course, but it had experience enough with that from trying to connect to dead sections of [18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s]. The important thing was that it had worked, that it had provided something.

It would probably take a very long time to refine the process, but time was - fortunately - something it had nigh-inconceivable amounts of. Guests was a slightly less tractable problem, but on a long enough timescale it would have more than enough of them too.

Whether it took ten, a hundred, a thousand tries, it was going to learn to talk to them.

->>>-

Immediately after the death of the Emperor...

Graath'vam'Zar shook his head, laughing quietly to himself. Fucking monkey mentalist...

Just a few paces ahead of him his mate's waist swung hypnotically as she strode across the rooftop landing pad. In a moment she'd turn back and catch him 'mirin', and only because she'd seen the deadly seriousness written in his gaze, heard it in his voice as he ushered her out of their modest apartment and up the stairwell would she refrain from scolding him for staring at her rump before asking about her day.

Sure enough, she turned, but instead of mischievous admonishment he only saw uncertainty and fear. He reached out, tenderly stroked her delicate facial scales with the back of a claw, and decided not to hurry her for just one moment. "Peace, love. We are going to be fine."

"You might be," she huffed, "but I don't have the first clue what the fuck is going on, Graath. You call me in a near-panic, telling me the Emperor's airship has gone down or some nonsense and to pack our bags and be ready for you. Then you show up armed, with a fucking flyer on the roof of our building like this is a damned operation or something! You're still wearing your uniform, baby! That is battle armour!"

This is just security-weave, oh to actually have my battle suit, he thought longingly to himself but wisely did not say. Instead he said, "The airship did go down, and we need to get out of the city as quickly as possible. This is going to be really bad, Veth, but I know a place out in the country we can go that is well hidden and well stocked. The owner doesn't need it any more."

As he spoke he tossed their luggage in a fuselage compartment and began to herd his mate up the embarcation ramp. She dug in her talons and began to resist before she was aboard.

"Graath, stop for a microcycle. If it's going to be so bad why aren't you with the Baron right now? Whose flyer is this?" she hissed.

He shrugged, made a noncommittal sound at the back of his throat. "It's the Baron's flyer, just get aboard."

She ducked through the door to the luxurious interior, and turned when she saw that it was empty.

"Where is the Baron, Graath?" she demanded.

He grunted as he slammed the hatch behind him and threw himself into the cockpit.

"The Baron's dead, baby," he said, opening the throttle and feeling the roar of the engines translate through the frame of the craft.

"The Baron's dead."

->>>-