The Traffic Control Room of an Imperial Terminal was an essential, if not dull, job – even on a military station. The Traffic Control used a combination of telescopes and radar to monitor everything from the motion of the celestial bodies to the traffic that flowed between the other Terminals and the system’s colonies. Typically, the most exciting part of a shift was when a shipping rocket got confused and started to change its course toward the military station.

And really, they had no reason to go toward the military station. There were three Terminals in the system and two colonies, not including the military Terminal, which orbited an otherwise useless dwarf planet near the rim of the system.

The Traffic Control Room had many stations. Monitoring so much sky – most empty – required a necessary amount of division in work. But, as far as military posts went, it was dull and easy.

“Sir,” one of the technicians called out. “I’ve got a contact with no IFF. The course is changing, but I think they’re headed to us,” he explained.

“Put it on display, and initiate contact,” the Commanding Officer ordered as he sat on his control couch. As he slipped into the seat, his head moved into the holographic display’s effective range, and the entire sky was lit up with vector-line graphics.

The entire system was laid out before him. Helpful symbols and shorthand text described each icon, with looping strings representing their predicted paths through space. Lit up in flashing blue was a symbol simply marked ‘UKN’ with two strings leading off it. A solid band slowly crawled its way from a hyperbolic path toward a dashed line that intercepted the little dot between the CO’s feet. Terminated at the Terminal.

“Unknown vessel bearing two-seven-zero by one-eight, your course intercepts Imperial Naval space,” the technician announced into his headset. “Divert course and activate IFF immediately,” he commanded.

“This is INV Manifest Destiny, returning with prisoners as ordered,” a voice hummed over the radio, projected into the CO’s ear as he entered a command to patch his seat into the radio.

“Unknown vessel, turn on your IFF and divert course or you will be fired upon,” the technician said more forcefully.

“This is INV Manifest Destiny, acting under Imperial Orders,” the voice replied, suddenly monotone.

The CO scowled down at the holographic depiction of the system. The ship had a high velocity, much higher than a Terminal would typically allow. Unfortunately, that velocity had sharply shortened their time to crunch out the readings. It had taken hours, and as a result, they had only minutes to react.

The technician and the ‘Manifest Destiny’ – if that was its name, it still hadn’t activated its IFF – made several more interactions. But then the speaker changed.

“Do you believe in justice?” the voice asked.

“E-excuse me?” the technician stuttered. The CO could almost see his brain come to a halt.

“Do you believe in justice?” the voice asked again.

“I don’t-“

“Silence can be a sin, did you know that?” the voice asked, suddenly accusatory.

“I-Identify yourself or be fired upon!” the technician demanded. Still, the authority he tried to place in his voice was diminished as his voice cracked.

“Silence, when you should protest, is cowardice,” the voice committed.

“I am not a coward!” the technician barked, suddenly incensed.

The CO entered a command and locked that technician’s workspace. It was time to step in.

“This is Commander Maximus Quietus. Present your Captain for confirmation of identity-“

“Do you follow orders? Commander Quietus?”

The CO resisted the urge to respond. Instead, he overlaid the effective range of the station’s laser array with a command into the system. Under regular use, they would aim toward light sails to slow them. But, in certain situations, their output could be concentrated into something that could boil steel. He also worked to connect himself to the operators of the lasers.

“Present your Captain for identity confirmation in one minute, or you will be fired on,” the CO said instead.

“Have you ever been given an order that you knew was wrong?” the voice asked.

The Commander did not respond. He’d made his demands already. But still, the words affected him.

“I already know the answer, of course. You’re the guard. You keep others from seeing their crimes. Your silence is a coward’s sin,” the voice said. “You probably don’t even know what’s on the other side of that Gate, do you? They told you to be quiet, and you followed orders. I’m sorry that that means this has to happen.”

That brought pause to the Commander’s thoughts.

“Are you threatening me, Captain?” the Commander asked. “You are the Captain, aren’t you?” he asked, accusing.

“I hope you survive, Commander,” the voice answered instead. “Just remember: Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue.”

The Commander had had enough. This vessel was in violation of several vital security protocols. His only recourse was to destroy them. But the moment he jabbed at the button to connect him to the Commanders of the laser arrays, he paused as a noise wormed its way into his ear.

It was beautiful. The Commander could feel the sound as it hummed pleasantly across his skull. Every technician in the room paused as well, mesmerized by the sound. And across the Terminal, through the open line to the Traffic Control Commander, the laser Commanders also paused to listen.

They barely noticed as time passed. And none of their subordinates – unaware of the event unfolding across their command – could bring themselves to question their superiors. The entire command structure, anyone who could have stopped what was coming, was mesmerized. The few who attempted to use aerial comms were ensnared in the music.

They were swept away in the Singer’s voice. But there was more than her voice. They could hear the instruments – drums and strings and a kind of droning, musical in a way that none of them had ever heard before. Horns.

None of them noticed the six contacts that broke away from the Manifest Destiny. They didn’t see where those trajectories led. Nor did anyone notice that they would only arrive after the Manifest Destiny had slipped through their fingers.

By the time the music cut out and the crew of the Terminal began to regain their senses, the Manifest Destiny had already slipped through the Anti-Euclidean Bridge.

Three missiles struck the Terminal a moment later. They blasted away armor and bulkhead but failed to penetrate within the Terminal itself. The three missiles that followed immediately after blasted a hole through the power plants of each Anti-Euclidean Engine. Only one reactor entered into a meltdown state, quickly spreading devastation across a third of the Terminal. But it was more than enough to forcefully close the Anti-Euclidean Bridge behind the Manifest Destiny.

The Terminal on the other side of the wormhole met a similar fate. They were given no warning before the music ground all work to a stop. No warning was given as the Manifest Destiny emptied its magazine.

~,~’~{~{@ ((●(●_(ө_ ө)(Θ_Θ)(◌_◌)_●)●)) @}~}~’~,~

Tarpeia no longer cared about the troupe’s mission. As far as she was concerned, this was far more urgent and important. For all she knew, the Human had the answers to the questions their mission was meant to answer.

In the days following their arrival, Tarpeia learned that the Human had been found by one of Behn’s mothers, Karen’teh. And now, the Human had been placed in Karen’teh’s care, folded into the family like a lost child.

A genius and defiant child. One that likely fully understood the power she held over this village.

And every day, her grasp of Fahn’ehten and Imperial Trade Tongue grew. She didn’t even need Tarpeia to teach her. Behn – and indeed Karen’teh’s entire family – was infatuated with her and was eager to teach her when she asked.

But none of them were brave enough to follow her on her outdoor walks. The Human, Eabha, didn’t seem to sleep as long as any of them, Viribus or Vyrăis. And after their long march through the Twilight Storms, Tarpeia simply couldn’t keep up. But she made her walks anyway, much to the dismay of the village – whether they feared for the Human’s health or that she might attract a monstrosity was never clear.

Still, the first thing Tarpeia did when she woke up was to patrol the village, searching for Eabha.

Tarpeia had learned so much from her interactions, despite the Human’s language barrier and her habit of simply not responding whenever Tarpeia asked too many questions. It was like she shut down after too much talking like it somehow exhausted the Human.

When Tarpeia found the Human this time, she sat on a winding bough that overlooked the dark jungle below. In the distance, lit only by starlight, Tarpeia could see the glimmering reflection of the sky on one of the valley’s many lakes. Karen’teh hovered nearby, her gaze nervously flicked between the Human and the long drop to the ground below.

In the distance, the sky subtly glowed with Landing’s light pollution. Intermittent gunfire, like quiet firecrackers, echoed across the valley.

But it was likely the rhythmic scraping sound that truly had the Viribus worried. Slowly and steadily, the Human’s hands worked a flat stone across something in her lap. Each motion of her arm produced a tiny puff of pale dust, which the gentle wind carried away.

As Tarpeia approached, the Human paused.

“The Viribus do not like you,” Eabha said in stilted Imperial Trade Tongue, uncaring that her volume shocked Karen’teh – though the woman didn’t dare correct Eabha. “They say you are invaders from the sky. Karen’teh says your people slaughtered children.”

What was Tarpeia meant to say to that? To disavow the Empire? She was displeased with that history, but neither could she correct it by apologizing for the actions of men far outside of her control. She chose to remain silent rather than imply her complacent guilt by apologizing.

“Why did you come here?” the Human finally asked.

“I don’t know why the Empire chose this world,” Tarpeia admitted, though she kept her voice barely above a whisper. “The Empire usually only uplifts technologically developed worlds, places with roads and industry – and the capacity for unified diplomacy. Only once the Emperor appointed a new General to oversee this world did positions with a lower security clearance open. That’s how I came to be here. I hoped that I could help the Tribes-”

“I don’t really care about your Empire,” the Human admitted with a shake of her head. “Why are you here,” she said more insistently, with a finger pointed down to her feet.

“Right,” Tarpeia stuttered, suddenly aware of Karen’teh’s judgemental eyes. “We want to research the Night Monsters, find a way to stop them – forever,” she admitted. She didn’t dare lie. “We needed a place far away from the noise of the colony,” she explained. “We plan to march from here to the far shore of that lake and try to capture one,” Tarpeia explained with a nod to the distant lake.

The Human looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, and Tarpeia thought she saw a sudden spark of actual interest in her eyes. “How?” she asked.

“How much do you understand about signal jamming for frequency-modulated signals?” Tarpeia asked instead.

“Silent or loud?” the Human asked with narrowed eyes. Her terminology was incorrect, but Tarpeia was surprised by the answer nonetheless.

“Silent, though we call it subtle,” Tarpeia explained.

“You want to capture the receiver with a louder frequency?” the Human asked. “Do you know a command? Something to tell them not to continue their last command?”

Tarpeia tamped down on her surprise. In just a few words, the Human had summarized everything they’d been able to discover about the monstrosities to date.

“We do,” Tarpeia choked out. “We’ve recorded a signal we believe to be a command to enter a deep slumber, to wait out the Day,” she admitted.

“Can you show me?” Eabha asked.

Tarpeia grimaced. “You destroyed our emitter,” she hedged.

“I’m sorry, it was loud, and one was nearby – I didn’t want to risk it,” Eabha said with a shrug. “What about on a picture? With the line?” she asked bluntly.

“You- You knew one was nearby?” Tarpeia asked with a sudden flush of dread.

“Yes, I hear them. Like the emitter,” the Human said bluntly, almost as if it should be obvious. “Besides, if that was your strongest emitter, I don’t think it was big enough. Orderly solid vibrators1 are not strong enough. Primitive,” she explained dismissively, even as she struggled with the limits of her vocabulary and the effect of her accent increased.

But Tarpeia barely heard her. Tarpeia was no engineer, her understanding of the principles involved was rudimentary – little more than a basic overview from her university days. It had never occurred to her that the emitter might not be strong enough. And that sudden realization, that not only had they been one wrong turn from death, but that their mission had been doomed to failure from the start, opened a floodgate of doubts.

Did they even have a signal that would stop one of those things?

Tarpeia didn’t notice when the Human stood up and walked back to the more solid platform that Tarpeia stood on. But Tarpeia noticed when the Human pressed something into her hands, a gesture surprising enough to shake her dread loose.

It was a spiraling seashell, nearly as large as the Human’s head. A giant freshwater snail shell, Tarpeia realized. It was a typical dish among the Viribus. The Viribus would puncture the shell with a pointed stone mallet – or if they were strong enough, with the claws of their thumbs. They often ate the meat raw or boiled it into stews. But the Human had oddly modified the shell – she’d sealed the puncture hole and cut a new one at the apex of the shell using the grinding stone.

Eabha pressed the grinding stone into Tarpeia’s hands. Then, with small but firm hands, Eabha guided Tarpeia into the same slow grinding motion that the Human had performed. Together, they ground away at the shell, gently removing a small sliver of calcium with every stroke. And soon, despite the shockingly loud sound of the grinding, Tarpeia felt some of her stress grind away with the dust.

“Don’t worry, there isn’t one nearby,” Eabha said, halting and through a thick accent, but reassuring nonetheless.

Only now that she’d been forced to relax by Eabha’s impromptu, meditative action did Tarpeia realize how stressed she’d felt. The panic attack had snuck up on her. Tarpeia had honestly convinced herself that she was prepared for failure. Still, she could realize the delusion for what it was now that Eabha had so thoroughly revealed the flaws of their plan.

“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?” Eabha asked suddenly. “It’s like a kɒŋk,” she said, and Tarpeia realized that the Human meant the shell in their hands.

Funnily, that simple juxtaposition brought Tarpeia back to the current moment. That word, kɒŋk, wasn’t in the lexicon of any language that Tarpeia knew – but the Human had spoken it with such conviction that she was sure it was a word. A word from a Human language.

“This is the most you’ve ever spoken to me,” Tarpeia noted as she stopped the rhythmic grinding.

“This is the first time you’ve asked an interesting question,” Eabha said as she pulled the shell back into her arms. “It’s also the first time I’ve seen an Invader show emotion,” she said, using the Viribus word for the Vyrăis. “I was worried you were all … flat,” she said, likely lacking a better word.

“What is it that I said that interested you?” Tarpeia asked in surprise. She’d attempted to draw the Human into conversations about culture, language, art, and music – all to little effect. These were Tarpeia’s own areas of interest, something she could have easily given lectures on if she’d ever taken a teaching position at her alma mater. Instead, it wasn’t until she’d been drawn into a conversation about monsters – and mollusk shells – that the Human had shown any interest.

“I want to catch one, too,” Eabha admitted. “Show me the signal.”

~,~’~{~{@ ((●(●_(ө_ ө)(Θ_Θ)(◌_◌)_●)●)) @}~}~’~,~

The Singer had gone too far this time.

There was actual frost on her back, snowflakes frozen to her eyelashes.

She’d expected this, of course. Achilles had been clearly familiar with the phenomenon from his work with the General – though by the Vyrăis had admitted he’d never seen such a physical expression of it. And frankly, she’d have to be an idiot to not have noticed her brush with hypothermia was connected to … whatever this was.

As a result, she’d instructed Old Bess to prepare warmed towels and a hot drink. But when the hot towel touched her back, her skin crawled and itched and burned, and it took serious effort for the Singer not to writhe and flinch away from the sensation.

Old Bess sucked in a harsh breath as she examined the Singer’s bare back. “Your skin is blistering!” she gasped in horror.

“Frostbite,” the Singer stuttered as she fought back wave after wave of shivers. “How the fuck does this even work?” she lamented as the pain of her thawing skin slowly grew. “It must take so much energy to do this – not to mention the calculations. My brain certainly can’t be doing it. It must be sucking the heat out of everything to power itself, but how? And how is it enough?” she almost couldn’t stop talking. Her head hurt, and she felt dizzy.

But, slowly, the warm towels and pouch of the heated drink warmed her core. And the shivering finally stopped. They noticed that the cheering from the command module had stopped. The silence felt ominous in its completeness.

The Singer navigated away from the closet-come-broadcast-booth to the command module and found a grim scene. The officers at their stations stared at their displays with pale expressions.

Achilles was the first to speak.

“We’ve been spiked by radar,” he explained as he unharnessed himself with grim finality. “By the strength and profile, we’ve determined its origin is a warship in orbit over Laetus. A Battlecruiser.”

That wasn’t part of the plan. And by the stressful postures of the crew in the command module, they realized it too. But now was not the time for panic, it wasn’t what the General would do, and it wasn’t what a Captain would do either.

“Alright, keep us on alert. We need to be prepared for them to launch missiles,” the Singer commanded. She could see the effect of her calmness immediately, though not universally. “Keep an eye out for rocket flares. They’ll be the easiest to spot at launch from this distance. Keep vigilance. If they get tricky and try to send one at us at an oblique angle, we won’t be able to spot it until it’s right on top of us.”

“R-remember your time dilation. We’re two light-minutes away from Laetus,” Star stuttered at the sensors station. The officer there nodded as he nervously worked.

But Achilles did not fall back into the work. He just pushed past where the Singer had stopped in the entryway. The crew noticed.

“Navigator, you have the bridge,” the Singer said. She hated to single out the young Ventusi, mainly as she appeared to be particularly panicked by the news. But the navigator was next in charge after Achilles, and the Singer needed to keep the crew’s morale from shattering. So only once she’d received the confirmation did the Singer turn around to pursue the First Officer.

She found him in his bunk, the closet-sized space the First Officer typically shared with the Captain – although he’d had the room to himself. He drifted in a fetal position, curled with his hands clasped over his knees. One of the padded storage pouches was open and otherwise empty.

Singer hesitated at first but closed the door to the space. It did little to shut out the ship’s background noise, but it did afford them a modicum of privacy.

“They need us right now, Achilles,” the Singer said, and though she tried to keep how upset she was with him out of her voice, she could see the tension in his shoulders increase.

“They don’t,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard. “We’re dead already. We failed,” he hissed. His hands closed tighter, the fine scales of his knuckles discolored from the pressure.

“That’s not how this works, Achilles,” the Singer said, short. “Do you not realize how much you affect the crew? When I was in the mess, you think that scattering was an accident?”

“I realize! I don’t care anymore,” Achilles snapped. “I failed,” he hissed. “I failed him.”

The Singer knew who he meant immediately, and his sudden change in character took on a new light. “You and the General were close, weren’t you,” she asked. The moment of grief she’d seen flash across his face came to the front of her mind: when she’d realized the General planned to die on Torus.

“Yes,” Achilles croaked after a moment of hesitation. His hands loosened, and as he glanced into the cage his fingers made, the Singer spotted a flash of gold. A ring, like the one she had chained around her neck.

“How did you meet him? Was it your name that made you stand out to him?” she asked after a moment of consideration. It felt manipulative, but she had to lure him out of his depressive state if their crew was going to make it through this.

“No, not my name. He named me,” Achilles admitted as his fingers traced the ridges and curves of the ring.

“He gave you your name?” the Singer asked in surprise. “Didn’t you have one?” she asked hesitantly. She understood that Vyrăis were proud as a rule, especially of their family name.

He didn’t answer immediately.

“I suppose I should remember that you don’t know much about Vyrăis culture,” he said with a nervous exhalation, just short of a laugh. “I was exiled. That means I was stripped of my name. And when I did manage to find work, the families that were in charge found ways to make it convenient for me to be replaced,” he explained.

“That seems cruel,” the Singer said weakly.

“It was cruel,” Achilles admitted. “It was the cruelest thing my fa- the patriarch could do to me. Killing me would have been embarrassing. But exile is a total dismissal. I never belonged to that family. As far as anyone was concerned, I never existed,” he explained with tightly coiled tension in his voice. “I can’t even call them my family anymore, even if I wanted to.”

“Do you know what Achilles means?” the Singer asked.

“What it means?” Achilles asked after a long pause.

“It’s from a Human story,” she explained. “He was the greatest warrior in the Trojan War, son of a powerful water spirit and a king. His mother took him to the river that separates the living and dead worlds, and she held him by one heel and dipped him into the water.”

“And this protects him?” Achilles asked incredulously.

“Yes,” the Singer said with a wry smile. “Everywhere the water touched him, he became invulnerable. As a result, he became the greatest hero of his time and defeated the Trojan champion.”

Achilles scoffed. “The General did have an ironic sense of humor.” He chuckled, though it felt forced.

“But he didn’t treat you like a joke, though, did he?” the Singer asked, hopeful that she wasn’t wrong.

“No,” Achilles answered immediately. “He gave me good work. Trusted me with his secrets. Trusted me to enact his will on an unjust system.”

“Did he ever give you challenging jobs?” she asked.

“Always,” Achilles said, his fingers almost worshiping the ring in his hands. “He pushed me to improve. And I watched him push himself all the way to the edge of death. I’d never seen a person stay awake for seven days or run- I had no idea Humans could run for so long.”

“You mentioned that the General got cold, too.”

“He meditated,” Achilles explained. “And we knew he was doing it because the power in the building would struggle, and the room would get colder. I probably treated him for hypothermia,” he shook his head, “I don’t even know how many times. But every time he came out of it, it was like he’d had some incredible epiphany. He had a plan every time. He was … amazing. A genius.” His voice was reverent. Still grieving.

“Did he ever give you a job you couldn’t handle?” she asked, leading now.

“No,” he stuttered. “I always found a way to complete the mission.”

“Well-“

“I see what you’re doing,” he sighed. The ring slipped onto one of his fingers, but he didn’t halt his reverent touch. “It doesn’t matter. This is an impossible task. We can’t establish orbital superiority, not with what we have left, not against a battlecruiser.”

Unfortunately, he was correct. Battlecruisers were even larger than the immense corvette they’d stolen, with nearly double the number of weapons – not to mention the size of their magazine. A corvette like theirs would have been built in an orbital base, each section loaded onto a rocket and assembled in free fall. Instead, a battlecruiser was built in drydock on a tiny moon. It would be nearly double the mass of the Manifest Destiny in armor and armament.

Frankly, in an even fight, the Battlecruiser would always win.

“What if we don’t have to,” the Singer asked.

“Excuse me?” Achilles hissed. “That’s the mission.”

“But what’s the goal?” the Singer asked. “Do we need to destroy the ship or just cripple it?”

“We can’t even do that,” Achilles snapped. “We don’t have the armament. Even if we had missiles, there’s no way we could overwhelm their point-defense.”

Singer knew this already. The General had briefed her on orbital combat, though she wouldn’t dare call herself an expert. He explained that most combat occurs beyond the line of sight, with no dogfights or dramatic cannonade slugfests like with wooden sea vessels. Instead, ships maneuver themselves in orbit, launching fleets of missiles and drones – which often had to fly in massive numbers to overwhelm highly capable point-defense autocannons.

When ships did pass close to each other, it was often measured in kilometers. That was when the guns and lasers came into play. At those distances, even sluggish ships could dodge bullets. Effective range was often defined by bullet travel time and laser diffraction.

“What if we ram it?” the Singer asked, an idea slowly forming in her mind. A very risky one.

“What?” Achilles asked, almost sending himself into a spin as he turned to face her.

“We’re riding on a massive missile. Do you think a Battlecruiser could stop it somehow if we sent all half-a-dozen kilotons at it?”

“I don’t-“ Achilles stuttered. “No one’s ever done that before. And no one would agree to follow you into that kind of suicide run-“

“What if we weren’t on board?” the Singer interjected. “We could all board the shuttle, disembark while we’re on the other side of the planet from the Battlecruiser, program the computer to fly the whole ship like a missile.”

That silenced Achilles. He froze, and the Singer had a slight moment of panic as she feared she’d somehow made him incredibly angry.

“That might work,” he hissed. “But we need to start planning now,” he growled.