“Coming up next: The first of Torus Terminal’s Anti-Euclidean Engines is coming online. What can we expect from the end of our isolation at the frontier of the Empire?” the perky Vyrăis woman’s voice echoed across the enclosed streets. The light of the jumbotron’s screen was awash among neon tubes and glowing holographic signs attempting to sell passers-by everything from new foot coverings to ‘happiness in a can.’

The crowds of the thoroughfare barely seemed to notice. To them, the flashing lights and drone of public news networking was just part of a typical day’s background noise. However, Brettn found he had to continually stop to pull the Singer away from the sights and sounds – even though she was the one who was supposed to be leading him to their destination. It was as if the Human had never been outside, though he assumed that hopping ships in secret did not lend itself to sightseeing.

The goal was to remain inconspicuous, and the cloaks they were wearing would only work if they moved with the crowd. Stopping to stare at a brightly lit advert for tooth plate cleaning paste was not normal enough.

“We’re not going to get anywhere today if you keep stopping,” he hissed to her as he once again pulled her away from a dancing holographic mascot.

“Sorry, it’s just ... it seems like it's been ages since I’ve done something as mundane as shopping,” she said wistfully. “Though I guess I’ve never actually been shopping,” she mumbled as she finally turned to keep pace with Brettn.

“Why’d you even bring me? Does this have to do with your job?” he asked.

“Yes, it does,” she said as they turned down a side street. A feathered alien watched them pass with glazed over eyes, but otherwise, the cramped street was abandoned. “Our entry expert was arrested three days ago, we needed a replacement.”

“I don’t remember telling you I knew anything about ‘entry,’” Brettn noted. He also noticed when the feathered alien stood up and ducked into a nearby door – it was a lookout which meant that they’d arrived. Whether they’d reached a rival gang’s ambush or the Singer’s cell, Brettn wasn’t sure, but he felt his hearts beat faster.

“It was a guess,” she admitted. “In the prison, they don’t let the inmates season their own food, so you must have gotten into the kitchen somehow. And you don’t strike me as someone who can charm his way past the guards,” she said with a grin at his expense.

“Not my fault, the doors don’t fit right, and there’s a gap in the rotation for about ten minutes,” he mumbled with a roll of his eyes. Despite the teasing, the subject change did help him calm down. “I never got the chance to tell you that I was impressed you knew about the emergency latch. I can’t really get to them, so I just wrote it off by habit.”

“Thanks,” she said, her smile flashed from under her hood.

“Yut git sum old dross fer a pur detter?” a bundle of rags and feathers mumbled as they approached a cluttered dog leg in the narrow street. A clawed arm, whose owner was suffering from heavy molting, reached out with the palm up. Brettn almost instinctively turned away, he hardly ever had the money for beggars, to begin with, and this one looked to be in the kind of shape that came from the good stuff.

But, the Singer stopped. “No dross today, but I have this,” she responded. She reached out and dropped a heavy signet ring into the beggar's hand. The hand reflexively snatched the ring from the air, and the owner examined it for a moment before – with a surprising dexterity – they tossed the ring back to the Singer. She caught it as the beggar surged to their feet. Another bony hand retrieved a bit of wire from the beggar’s rags, and the beggar weaved it into a crack in the wall behind them.

A loud click echoed from a door that they’d passed, and the Singer waved to the beggar as they resumed their post. Brettn let out a breath he’d been holding and felt he could finally relax – the lookouts belonged to the Singer. For all Brettn knew, they weren’t even beggars, just more of her soldiers dressed up in a kind of urban camouflage.

Or rather, they were the General’s soldiers. And so was she. So was Brettn.

She led the way into the door, and past a second steel door that a T’nann opened from inside. She greeted the soldier by name, but he only glared at them as they passed and securely shut the door behind them.

The room was spartan and acted as a barracks as well as their main base of operations. Padded mats were piled in one corner for bedding, and tables held recently cleaned and maintained weapon mounts – a prosthetic that T’nann Imperial Soldiers used to operate standard-issue firearms. A makeshift gym took up most of the rest of the space.

All activity halted as they entered, and fourteen T’nann heads turned to glare at them. Brettn felt less safe again.

“I don’t like changing the plan so close to the mission,” one of the T’nann groused. She stood from where she’d been crouched under a weight rack, which shuddered as she rolled the bar off her back.

“Don’t worry so much about the specifics, Dar-Tin,” the Singer said as she removed her cloak. “The important part is, Brettn can get us in the door. And then you all do what you do best.” She balled up the cloak and motioned with it at the table of weapons. “The important details are communication protocols, and you all are basically experts at this point. We’ve had this conversation before, let’s skip to the part where you grudgingly agree with me and move on,” she said dismissively as she moved toward one of the tables.

Brettn followed if not by instinct, then at least so he wouldn’t become the sole target of those glares. He’d never had to fight a T’nann, and he didn’t want to try today.

“This is our last entry guy’s research on the building, he’s already done most of the work for you,” the Singer explained as she led Brettn to the sheets neatly stacked on the table.

Brettn looked over the collected documents and began to remove his own cloak. The other ‘entry guy’ had done proper research, Brettn could already see several points of entry on each door. With his tools, he could get through most in a few seconds. If it weren’t for the dirty looks, Brettn might have enjoyed getting back to doing what he did best.

Studying how to maintain various systems on the ship grew tedious quickly. It wasn’t that Brettn didn’t want to be useful, but he could only read so many technical manuals before he tried to scratch his horns off his own head.

“How long do you want to look at those?” the Singer asked. “The ship arrives soon, and the sooner we take the communication station, the quieter we can be. The guys are ready, we just need a way in.”

“Not long, but the ship doesn’t come until tomorrow,” Brettn said. “I thought we were supposed to move synchronized. You know, create an event across the entire station, so there aren’t enough hired guns to stop the whole thing?”

“It’s still the plan, but if we can pull this off, we get something pretty good out of it: We can direct where the Corvette docks, which takes out a lot of variables,” the Singer explained.

“And it puts us all in danger, not to mention the plan as a whole,” Dar-Tin grunted from the other side of the room. “I say we wait,” she growled.

“Are you challenging me, or the General?” the Singer snapped, not bothering to turn away from the sheets on the table.

Dar-Tin made a snorting noise and hopped across the room with purpose. The Singer turned to face Dar-Tin but didn’t move. “Answer the question, Dar-Tin. Me or the General? Because if you want to do this, you better be ready to do it with him, too,” she deadpanned, finally bringing the charging T’nann to a halt.

Dar-Tin’s tail whipped back and forth angrily, and the others stared impassively. They would not interfere to stop the fight or to take a side. But they would watch.

“Get on the mat,” Dar-Tin growled. She turned away without another word, and the rest of the soldiers scrambled to clear a space in their gym.

“Great,” the Singer huffed. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this. Any advice?” she asked under her breath as she pulled a set of ribbons from her pockets.

“You’re asking me?” Brettn asked incredulously. When she just shrugged in that way that Brettn had learned meant something along the lines of “why not?” he said: “Their tails are strong, but T’nann don’t turn fast,” he offered with his own approximation of a shrug that amounted to some twisting of the tentacles along his back.

“Worth a try,” she said with another shrug as she wrapped her hands with the ribbons. “Wanna see how I got off that Imperial Transport?” she asked as she walked toward the mat.

Dar-Tin bounced and weaved on the mat as the Singer approached, loosening up for a brawling match like she would with any other T’nann. The Singer was the perfect juxtaposition, calmly walking while carefully stretching her shoulders and flexing her wrapped wrists.

When the Singer stepped onto the mat, Dar-Tin lunged to try to whip with her tail. The Singer wasn’t fast enough to completely dodge the strike, but she surprised Dar-Tin by stepping into the blow. The fastest part of the tail strike was at the tip, and she managed to take the less powerful blow from a slower-moving part of the tail. It still made a terrible thud as it hit her shoulder and chest area.

The Singer closed the remaining distance and made a clapping motion with her hands around Dar-Tin’s head. The T’nann collapsed in writhing pain instantly. With a swirling step, the Singer pinned Dar-Tin’s tail with one leg and took hold of Dar-Tin’s head with both hands. “Submit, or I’ll do that again until your eyes bleed,” she threatened, almost too quietly for the rest of the room to hear.

Brettn, and by extension the rest of the T’nann, stared in shock. They’d expected the Singer to fight like the General did, and this wasn’t it.

Brettn hadn’t ever seen how the General had earned the respect of the T’nann on the station, but he’d heard many more stories now that he had found himself in the inner circle. The General had danced circles around every T’nann who’d challenged him in this same manner. He struck with his fists, but only ever to force his opponent to continue engaging. He didn’t let up, and the fights tended to last for hours. By the time the T’nann could barely move, the General could knock them around without resistance – and usually did so to brutal effect.

The Singer struck once, and she’d done it in such a way that she didn’t have to do it again. Brettn wasn’t sure what she’d done to the T’nann, but the effects were dramatic. Dar-Tin apparently agreed because she submitted eagerly.

“I thought Star told me you did some sort of singing trick?” Brettn asked. He tried to hide his surprise, but it must have come through because she shrugged.

“That really only works on the Lizards, I don’t think T’nann like that sort of thing,” she shrugged as she disentangled herself from Dar-Tin. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get ready. And so do all of you. We’ll leave after the next shift change.”

~,~’~{~{@ ((●(●_(●_(#_#)(-_-)_●)●)) @}~}~’~,~

Sheh’teh sat on the floor of the General’s room, with her tail curled and her legs folded. Despite this, she still loomed in the room – but she felt small in the General’s presence. He sat in a similar position on his cot, a red spot on his bandages revealed he’d popped another stitch but other than the pained expression he didn’t seem to notice. A tablet in his hands whispered Human words to the General, and the longer it whispered, the darker his expression grew.

The purple smoke haze in the room did not help. It was from a small supply of a dried plant they’d brought from Laetus – the kind priests used during intense prayer. When it was burned, the smoke created an intense focus and could reveal visions and truths. She’d seen priests lose themselves in the visions the smoke could show them, but the truths it could help reveal were worth the danger.

He’d managed the headaches the smoke could make by using an imitation smoke, something that could help him relax after the intense concentration of the dried leaves’ smoke. But now he’d foregone even that and had so far listened to thirty hours of double speed recordings while simultaneously reading ... well, she didn’t know how much he’d read. But she knew him to be a fast reader, and that there was a large number of images with text encoded into the little tablet.

So deep was he in this prayer that he hadn’t noticed when Sheh’teh had entered, and though she’d waited for him to reach a stopping point, her patience had reached its limit.

“I do not like this new plan, General,” she announced.

With a flick of his wrist, the recording playback halted, and he turned red-rimmed eyes toward her. He didn’t say anything, but she continued anyway.

“You shouldn’t have to do this, it is only one Vyrăis. We can kill him easily,” she explained. “There’s no need for you to-“

“Killing the Inquisitor is not the goal, though it may be a result,” he interrupted with rapid speech. “Both plans put all of us back on Laetus with the Empire’s orbital assets crippled.”

“Then why must it be this way?” she asked desperately. “Why can’t you come with us instead of meeting us there?” she asked.

He sighed and set down his tablet, turning his full attention to her. “Do you remember what I told you about the cost of war?” he asked simply.

Sheh’teh nodded. “Soldiers need food, water, tools, and weapons. Perhaps beasts to carry it all. Soldiers also often seek payment of some sort. The costs grow geometrically as the number of soldiers and length of deployment grows,” she summarized, considering what it might take to bring a large force to bear against a similar, opposing force.

“Correct, and it is often the economy of a kingdom which supports these costs. The more powerful their economy, the larger their forces can become, and the longer they can be deployed. The Empire has, in theory, an extremely robust economy,” he explained. “It is fragmented heavily, and self-governed. Both of which create an environment that promotes trade and keeps collapses from affecting the economy as a whole. But in practice, almost all of the systems in the Empire share a vital weakness: the aristocracy.

“Almost every system in a hundred lightyears from here is stratified. The rich make the laws and own the land, and they pay the people to work the land – which makes the rich richer,” he explained. “Anyone with a bit of perspective might be able to see the injustice there, but the trouble is this herding mentality all these different peoples seem to share.

“It’s a baffling mixture of morality, Sheh’teh. An incredibly selfish mentality – they don’t gather to protect each other, they gather to protect themselves. Less of a chance of getting picked off by a predator if there’s someone slower than you nearby. It’s passive,” he spat.

Sheh’teh nodded in agreement, though she regretted the action as the smoke made it seem as if the walls were moving on their own. The shadows moved in distracting serpentine motions in her peripheral vision.

“I’ve spent the past decade fighting that. Infecting the people here with ideas of a better life,” the General continued. “Worse than that, I’ve convinced them it’s possible under the current system for the rich to stay wealthy, and for the poor to get their fair share, too. All of my apartment buildings, factories, smelteries, packing plants, and warehouses – not to mention the soup kitchens: If they aren’t operating at a loss, then it’s close, but the public doesn’t know that.

“What the public sees is that I went from no-one to someone. I got rich and stayed that way, and everyone who works under me gets a comfortable life. And it all works because I can bleed money off the actual rich to put back into the businesses I’m running. Do you think I’m doing all that to help these people?” he finally asked.

Sheh’teh knew the answer was no: The General had never hidden his apathy toward the suffering of the people in the Empire. At first, Sheh’teh had felt the same. But the longer they’d spent immersing themselves in their cultures, the harder it had been to see them as aliens instead of people. It was hard to equate the honest work and struggle of these gentle peoples with the terrors she’d seen in her home.

“So then, Sheh’teh, now that I’ve built myself up to be this paragon of the community on the one hand, and the iron fist of the crime world on the other, what do you think will happen if I’m destroyed?”

The smoke was beginning to narrow Sheh’teh’s vision now, and the slithering shadows were becoming hard to ignore. “If you disappear, then the criminals will try to fill the power vacuum you leave behind. I know that much,” she admitted. That was obvious to her, it was as it was in nature: An apex predator sits atop the food chain, and where there is none to fill that niche, perhaps another kind of creature will adapt to take that place.

“Correct,” he said as he motioned with one hand. He lifted the other and said: “And the common people will rebel as well,” he said. “What they will see is that the other rich, the ones who do not give so generously to the people beneath them, have killed me. They will see an agent of the Empire carrying out that will. And then the money will stop coming. The rents will go up, and people will be laid off.

“They will say, ‘They took away our homes!’ And they will say, ‘They took away our jobs and our pay!’” he said as he met her eyes with that piercing gaze she’d never expected a Human to have. “It won’t just be every other sorry loser, it will be entire Blocks of people all shouting out that they have been wronged.”

“And then they will riot,” Sheh’teh realized. “The entire station will be at war with itself,” she said as the serpents decorating the walls began to bite at each other. It was becoming hard to breathe, and the serpents wove together in rings as they each began swallowing their own tails.

“And the Empire’s war machine will grind its gears,” the General said.

“Are you sure this is the right way, General? It won’t just be our planet that suffers now, it will be countless billions,” Sheh’teh asked. Within her, she could feel her desire for justice battling against the creeds she’d sworn to: the ones that said she was a protector and not a destroyer.

The weave of snakes writhed around them, and the General’s piercing gaze never wavered as he said, “It’s too late to stop it now, with or without a martyr for it to rally behind.”

~,~’~{~{@ ((●(●_(●_(#_#)(○_○)_●)●)) @}~}~’~,~

The lights in the room flickered but did not die. All the same, it broke the Singer’s concentration, and she felt the hole in her mind slip away. She could still tell where it was, but could no longer feel its tugging presence. Now that she knew it existed, it was never far from her perception.

She grumbled to herself under her breath, yet another failure digging at her shame. She felt like she’d failed herself and her team when she’d allowed Dar-Tin to challenge her. She felt even worse that she’d defeated the poor woman so harshly in front of everyone. She felt insincere using physical abilities she couldn’t remember having before this waking nightmare.

Worst of all, she felt like a fool as she sat in a dark room to try to ... well, she wasn’t exactly sure what it was that she would accomplish by opening ‘the Gate.’ The General’s had shown her the hole in her mind, but they were out of time. There was something there, of that she was sure – though she could hardly call it ‘Father’ as the General did.

And why should she? The way he described it, whatever was on the other side of that Gate was unknowably old, elusively motivated, and the reason that either of them existed. If anything she might call it-

The lights flickered, and she caught her breath as she felt the hole in her mind suddenly expand. In her musing, her perception had drifted closer and closer to the empty space in her mind. Until she’d strayed past some threshold, and now she felt herself falling into it. She could feel it pull her in as if she’d crested a hill only to begin rolling down the other side.

Her perception shrank away as if she had fallen down a well, and yet somehow, she felt it expand – as if she could suddenly see further into her peripheral vision. There was something else in that vast place inside her mind, and she felt it brush past her as the flesh along her entire body crawled. She was cold, and she could barely breathe.

“Noli timere,” the Singer’s voice said in her head, but the words were not her own. A rising crescendo filled her perception, and she felt her heart beating in four-four time. Music and emotions she hadn’t heard or felt in her entire life – but remembered all the same – stirred through her mind. When the voice spoke again, it almost sang the words, “Petite, et dabitur.”

She sat and listened for what felt like hours, feeling emotions, and hearing music that made her heart ache for a home that she could only remember. But far sooner than she expected, the lights flickered on, and she realized she’d only taken a few breaths since they’d died.

“Mother?” she breathed as the Gate closed.