6. A convex hexagon has exterior angles with measures 34

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Note: This is a complete standalone story. It ties into the larger story arc (specifically side events on how other systems are handling an invasion problem) but doesn't require any backstory to be complete by itself.
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With A Sound Like Thunder
Fifteen miles of payload tether burned an arc across the evening sky five thousand miles long, so hot and bright it was difficult to look at directly.
Half the population of Seraherd township stood on the roof of the processing plant, hands shading concerned eyes while they talked in low tones. More than a few passed a bottle around, tipping measured draughts into offered cups as their skyhook left a smoking trail from one end of the horizon to the other. Alcohol wasn't in their resource portfolio; no official still or moonshine apparatus ever found its way onto the colony shipment manifests. But they were resourceful. Colonists always found a way to provide for themselves; it was a point of pride so ingrained as to be almost religion. Not to mention agro cattle feed was mostly soy and corn to begin with so half the booze supply practically fell into their laps every harvest. But the pride thing mattered most.
The sonic boom began twenty minutes later, riding two hundred fifty miles of atmosphere to reach their town.
Bass so low it was more felt than heard rolled across the hills, shivering bioengineered quick-grow wheat and sending anything lightweight rattling around like it had legs and a bad attitude. It was a primal sound that spoke of danger: Thunderstorms, tornados, earthquakes. The holding pens east of the quarter-mile square plant turned into agitated waves of movement, groups of cattle shifting restlessly as ancient instincts pushed them to seek cover, find shelter... or just plain run until they left behind whatever predator was coming. Which would have been quite a trick as the boom went on and on, chasing the blazing end of the tether across the horizon in a shockwave seven times the speed of sound.
Agro cattle were huge-- twenty-two hundred pounds of meat after processing. They were immensely strong as well, easily able to flip a solid steel drone combine if one had a mind to. But they sure as hell weren't fast. And running away from that vengeful burning spike of fire in the sky would require a flat sprint of nearly a mile per second. That right there would be some supersonic beef protein.
Oscar Hile couldn't make himself believe that was possible.
Although to be fair he didn't consider himself to be the imaginative sort anyways. Downright practical, honestly. It was only lately (while watching the slow, spectacular death of the orbital tether) that he really started imagining things. He pictured just how much worse it would have to be from the spaceport, directly underneath the hook. In his mind's eye it was a mass of burning gantries and support structures, slagged buildings slowly toppling over on each other. Sonic booms so loud trees came right up out of the ground with the bark ripped off. Everything remotely flammable catching fire from radiant heat. Access roads so cooked construction vehicles sunk into them like soft candy, only to slowly harden into statues as the searing tether passed by. Then doing it all over again as the giant lift assist swung through again sixteen hours later, pitiless and unstoppable.
This imagination thing might be a bit overrated.
While Oscar considered the merits of human creativity he kept half an eye on the herds, watching for a stampede. Animals could become accustomed to anything-- humans included-- but even after three days of sonic booms you just never knew when one of them would suddenly take it as a signal to run. And when a couple thousand of anything got going it was best to get out of the way. Or start checking if your property insurance covered a hundred thousand hoof dents.
The other half of his attention was occupied with Jeffrey Hentley, the local Colony head currently holding court from the top of a turned-over harvest crate. Between the agro animals and Head Hentley he wasn't quite sure which might cause more long term damage.
"-preemptive attack! That's right; I heard it from the GravComm not even two hours ago. Corporate headquarters issued an advisory that our entire system is being invaded in a hostile takeover! Can you believe it?" Jeffrey certainly could. His black eyes and ruddy face pointed at everyone in the small crowd, energetic and animated. Some people saw adversity as a reason to buckle down and find solidarity with their neighbors. Others, like their colony head, saw it as opportunity. "But what is even better-- even better, hear this!-- is the bounty for aiding in the fight! For every person that signs up, a generous stipend will be added to our entire colony balance every week, to be redeemed when Corporate regains full control of the system! And I, for one, will be-"
"Who's invading?" That was Pat Irons, yelling from the back of the crowd. Oscar knew without even looking around. Pat had a voice made for calling fieldhands across a Colony mile-- raw, rough, undeniable. He didn't yell; he just sort of refused to acknowledge the existence of obstacles in between his mouth and the person receiving the words. It helped he was built like a rain barrel with four limbs attached, hands rougher than old leather. "Who 'xactly are we fighting with? We're a Colony, for crying out loud! Our value is our production!"
The crowd muttered about that, agreeing. It was true: They made what they ate, sold generous leftovers by the megaton and in between their planet grew more habitable every year. On the Corporate ledger they were firmly in the black, even with hundreds of atmosphere processors running and high altitude terraforming bombs every year. But as a target to attack? Ludicrous. How do you seize crops that aren't grown? Cattle that haven't calved?
Hentley hesitated, derailed from his personal speech at the interruption. He squinted at the dark crowd, picking out Pat from a sea of rough denim and stained work jackets. "Well, Corporate says they're-- I mean we are fighting drones. That's right! Drones. The enemy is so cowardly they sent machines at us!" He picked up steam again, pointed outward toward (presumably) space. "Right now two warships are holding off the invaders, but even their best efforts couldn't keep them off our resource stations! I'm told the system headquarters is nearly overrun and now we're seeing landings on both Colony planets. Not to mention the loss of our shuttle tether: That will set us back decades!"
Another mutter through the crowd, rippling loud enough to be heard over the continuous rumble of the skyhook entering atmosphere. Corporate stations and system transit was one thing; they didn't get involved and the spaceheads returned the favor. It was widely accepted that for anything in vacuum they could expect Corporate to handle it (at a premium, of course), which also included an unspoken caveat to keep cutthroat budget fights far away from their gravity well. But bringing the fight Colonyside was another matter: That was personal. A betrayal of the silent agreement.
"So we're fighting drones? Metal boxes, with weapons on them?" Gerald Garner that time. Oscar could almost picture the old timer nervously plucking at his overall pockets while he talked. "How are we supposed to fight that? With what? Farming machinery and cattle prods? I got two daughters at home, how can you expect-"
Oscar tuned out the debate as he noticed Harland Gum come up the stairwell and onto the roof, floppy boonie hat thrown back and an annoyed frown on his bearded face. He paused briefly at the top, knocking mud and manure off his boots, then caught Oscar's one armed wave and ambled over with an easy grace. "Hey there, Prickles." He thrust a hand out in a crushing handshake, then plucked a sheaf of papers from one front pocket. "Got them maps you were asking for. Most of the western range here, where all them ships crashed a while back."
"Any trouble getting copies?" Oscar accepted the folded maps, flipping them open to the range markers with a prospector's deft touch. "Corporate on you for it?"
"Nah, I know Sandra down at Archives. Used to see her on the side-like when we first settled in. Quit off it a couple of months in, but we're still a bit sweet." Blue eyes roamed the crowd, then settled on the Colony head. "He pitching them on being some kind of militia?"
"Seems like it." He unfurled maps along the edge of the roof, lining up markers until they were staring down at hill ranges with a birds-eye view. He spotted Seraherd colony right away, a small dot for seven thousand souls nestled right at the bottom of the north hills. Flat country bordered them on the south, hundreds of miles' worth bioengineered grasslands and micro-seeded waterways that abruptly ended at the edge of the terraform markers. All of it marked off with seasonal rotations for the herds. West of them was more grassland, bisected at a distance with a long red scar over the remains of Palos-1's spaceport. Hazard and danger symbols covered the map over there, warning of imminent collapse of the skyhook. But east..
He tapped the map to the east, just over some alluvial hills. "That's them?" Four small red circles encompassed an area about fifteen miles square. It was a lopsided pattern with small gaps, like someone flicked red ink onto the map and smeared it while cleaning up.
Harland glanced down and nodded. "Yup. Ships crashed down in that area. Can't get a better reading-- satellites stopped responding. Whatever got the tether station must have also snapped our birds out of orbit. Speaking of which, did our Head over there explain anything about that?" He pointed unsubtly at Hentley, who was currently in the middle of a wheedling argument with a coalition of produce farmers.
"Drones." Oscar grunted the explanation. One slim finger traced a path from the crash sites to Seraherd, tapping small black dots along the way. "These farming homesteads; they reported in lately? Anyone visited, talked to them?"
"Drones, he says." Harland looked quietly amused. "I think we both know that's some quality bullshit, Prickles. We both been in enough engagements to know that autonomous combat crap doesn't work. Hell if Corporate could replace us with machines they'd 'ave done it by now!" He slicked a thick head of black hair backwards with both hands, then ran fingers through an absurdly luxurious beard. "Don't fuckin' miss it for a second. Grooming standards? Ugh."
"Hale." Oscar tapped the map and looked up at the taller man, grey eyes intense. "The homesteads?"
"Oh, it's 'Hale' now, is it? You must be feeling the old days. Or maybe our boxtop prophet over there got you spun up a bit. And before you blow your top, Prickles, that's a hard negative. Homesteads not reporting in, even before we lost satellites." The humor drained out of him by degrees, taking a little humanity with it. He crossed both arms over a barrel like chest, rolled sleeves pulling up to display tattoos on both biceps. "What are you thinking?"
"Not sure." While Harland reveled in the loss of grooming standards, Oscar still kept his shaved to regulation Navy standard. Force of habit, mostly-- he couldn't imagine doing otherwise. But it left him without anything to do with his hands while thinking through a problem. He jammed both into the stained overall pockets. "Still got your Ricochet?"
"Those are illegal for Colonists to own."
"So that's a yes?"
"It's a maybe, dammit. Look, hey: I've seen you like this before and yeah, there's shit going down." He motioned towards the setting sun and the black scar of smoke trailing the skyhook's uncontrolled re-entry. "But that don't mean we have to get involved. Dead stars and supernovas, we bought out our contracts! We don't owe Corporate startups a damn thing any more. Can't we just... settle? Come on."
For a brief second Oscar genuinely considered it. Just let it go, work the herds, spend evenings in the town's small community hall buying drinks for women with an ear for off-world stories. They'd been doing well for the last three years at being civilians. But responsibility wasn't something he could really put a leash on. It was what made Oscar a good Acquisitions team leader, let him climb the Corporate ladder one engagement at a time, taking Harland with him the whole way. Responsibility and preparedness saved lives... but they were also habits: Once you picked them up it took more imagination than Oscar had to just throw them away again.
Harland read him like a book. "Oh fuck me with a stun stick."
"It's just a quick check." He threw both arms up in a 'what can you do?' expression.
"For drones. Autonomous, combat equipped drones without any sort of human assistance." Harland kicked the edge of the roof in frustration, knocking more mud off his boots and drawing a few surprised looks from the crowd. He waved them off with a big smile, then lowered his tone to a hiss. "You know that's bullshit! Nothing operates by itself for very long. It just... quits. Or runs into a color it can't process and hard locks. Or starts shooting at moving bushes until the power runs out."
"I know, I get it." Oscar looked up. "But still. The hell is going on? Stations getting overrun? Warships -- multiple warships!-- in prolonged battles for weeks? Weeks?" He snorted in disbelief. "You've seen what those things can do. We've been aboard when just one of those behemoths sterilized a whole startup system. Tell me two of them fighting anything for weeks makes any kind of sense."
There was a long pause, filled only with a steady rumble of distant sonic booms and the closer mumble of low speed propaganda.
"Fine! Fuck, you got me!" Harland looked annoyed enough to chew nails. "I can't think of anything a warship wouldn't atomize in an hour or less. But you're not going to convince me we're fighting dumb-as-rocks drones, especially not some sort of crash-landed... I dunno, robot recon force bullshit."
"Robot recon force?" Oscar looked faintly impressed. "Where did you get that?"
"Some of us watch entertainment feeds once in a while, Prickles." He levelled a stubby finger at Oscar's amused smile. "I'll get my Ricochet, give me an hour to dig it up and get ready. You're driving. I'm going to be drinking. But listen to me real good," he glared, beard and stylized hair in full, glorious display. "It ain't any kind of fucking drone."
"I cannot believe it's fucking drones."
Oscar shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable spot on bare rock. They were both currently belly-down across a shale escarpment, overlooking an extensive crash site below. Less than a mile away the wrecked remains of a transport thrust a burned metallic fuselage into the night sky like a raised middle finger, torn and curled metal flayed upwards at every angle. An impact crater a quarter mile south and a long slide mark full of debris showed how it ended up in that position. The crash itself must have been pretty spectacular: Bio-wheat fields were burned back a half mile along the entire length.
But what really had their attention were the drones.
"No, seriously. There has to be a human controller in there somewhere. Guiding those things, tasking goals, getting them directed." Harland looked pissed off on a professional level. "They never work on their own."
"Anything organic that went down on that freighter either got smashed into paste or incinerated." Oscar turned slightly, panning the scope of his Ricochet along the crash site below. "What the hell are they doing?"
Below them a churning mass of drones crawled on and around the ship remains like horrific spiders. Each machine was roughly triangular in shape with blunt, rounded corners and beveled long edges. The casing looked about three to four inches thick, made of some kind of mottled metallic looking composite that flashed a rainbow of oily colors when the light hit it just right. There didn't seem to be a defined front or a back to the things: They moved in any direction by flipping themselves completely over or skittering along their edges, pulled or flung by a series of cables that snapped out of each corner. Every now and then a group of them would suddenly snap together, cables pulling and compressing the triangular casings into complex open-sided hexagons.
That last behavior gave Oscar goosebumps. He spent several minutes zoomed in on one of the hexagons, ignoring Harland's complaints in favor of focusing on the small movements within. "Factories."
"-absolutely stupid, how could anyone even trust a machine to wait, what?" He cut off mid-rant. "Say again?"
"I think those are factories. The hexagon things they combine into. See how some of them bring pieces of the ship inside the shapes, then a little later another drone will drop out? They're making more of themselves somehow, inside there."
Harland got low, then snuggled into his Ricochet scope. Five feet of magnetic railgun whined as it cycled up, powering the sight and preparing a tungsten slug for deployment. Breath held, the bearded ex-trooper carefully scanned the activity below with both eyes wide open. "Alright, I see it." He exhaled slowly, controlled. "I don't believe it, but yeah-- that's what it looks like. Well... shit."
Oscar nodded in agreement, then elbow-walked backwards away from the edge to avoid skylining himself. He wasn't sure the drones used optics but old habits died hard. Clear of the edge he sat up, clicking the safety on and setting the railgun within easy reach just in case. He got out the satellite maps and laid them on the rock, tapping the red X marks over the farming homesteads. "So, they're hostile for sure. Everything between the crash sites was razed in a straight line. But are they targeting the farming homesteads, or are they just going from crash to crash for the resources?"
"Does it make a difference? That's a couple dozen people dead already." Harland patted his rifle. "I'm of a mind to spend a couple hours making incendiary loads, then sit back a couple miles and blow large, flaming holes in everything."
"That's definitely a plan." Oscar didn't look up from the map, eyes thoughtfully tracing out elevation markings.
"How come when you say it like that all I hear is 'what a horribly bad plan'?"
"I didn't say that."
"Maybe I should put large, flaming holes through you."
"I might have been thinking it." The taller man snorted in disbelief. Oscar relented, gracing his partner with an apologetic grin. "There are some... holes in that plan, though."
Harland's eyes came down to half mast. He let the pun die in the stale air, then continued to wait until the desiccated remains blew away. "I'm going to let that slide just once, Prickles. But why are large, fiery explosions not going to work?"
"Couple of reasons. First, they rode down on a broken transport and survived re-entry. That's, what? Over three thousand degrees? If we had military-grade thermal rounds or white phosphorus loads we could beat that, but otherwise I don't think it'll be good enough. Then there's the other problem."
Harland scratched his beard, then started patting his pockets. "I'm going to need another drink for this shit."
"It's quantity, since you're not interested in asking. There's too many of them, all over the place." Oscar frowned, using one fingertip to backtrace their route from town. Their path dipped and angled in places around rolling hills, but mostly ended up in a straight line from the crash site directly into Seraherd. "You're a hell of a shot, Hale-"
"Damn straight."
"-but even if you hit every single time we'd need over five thousand railgun casings. I doubt you have even a hundred, even if you managed to smuggle them out in every single piece of clothing you had when we left headquarters."
He raised one short finger in protest, then put it down again. "Okay. Good point. So I'll take the first hundred, then you can shoot the next four thousand or so."
"I have no ammunition at all, actually."
Harland recoiled with something like actual disgust. "You went full civilian? Prickles, I am... whoo. I don't even know what to say. This might be the closest I'll ever come to disowning you." Then he looked down at their rifles, side by side like two lethal birds on sleek tripods. "Wait, why the hell did you keep your Ricochet without any freaking ammunition for it?"
Memories rushed up, breaking a hard seal somewhere deep in Oscar's heart. They stormed through his mind, grabbed his hindbrain and took every emotion for a vicious joy ride through the years. Dozens of engagements. Hundreds of buddies, casualties, friends made and lost in the face of Corporate greed and hostile takeovers. Screams, explosions, triumphant yells and the cold vacuum of soundless conflicts.
He opened his mouth to explain it all, then realized he was eye to eye with Harland's sympathetic expression. "Memories."
They both looked away. Harland cleared his throat, turned and spat somewhere far out into the grass. "Yeah. Memories. Fuck 'em."
Oscar deliberately changed the subject, breaking hard away from an unspoken minefield. "Anyways, I think we have a way to take care of them all of once."
"I'm listening."
"We'll need the mining explosives from the dig site up north-- do you have any left over?" He knew the taller man was a pack rat when it came to explosives. Odds were good a couple of the small charges somehow ended up 'misplaced' into a personal backpack.
"Yup, got ten of 'em. But ten small packages isn't going to do much for that swarm down there. And I don't mind telling you I sure as shit am not volunteering to run my ass straight into them chucking bombs everywhere."
"You won't have to. In fact we might not even see them at all. Here's what we're going to do..."
Early morning in Seraherd was a quiet affair, if one ignored the constant susurrus of several thousand farm animals calling wake-up sounds to each other. Residents typically didn't get out of their premade habitations until the crack of six, when daylight was just starting to crest the horizon enough to walk around unassisted. It was better that way: The town was an agro startup, not a city, so things like streetlights and always-burning exterior LEDs were a luxury most people skipped out on. Which meant trips outside in the dark required a flashlight, a keen eye and a set of footwear you didn't mind getting a permanent slurry of animal shit stuck on.
Not to mention the town layout. Specifically the eastern side of town where the large meat processing facility was, right next to the enormous stockyards of docile protein still on the hoof. It was a fact that life on Palos-1 involved a certain knowledge of prevailing winds, most notably that night time gusts tended to travel west while daytime currents drifted eastward. Accordingly absolutely everyone lived west of the plant and fields, choosing to take the biological smells in the dead of night while they were asleep rather than suffer through sunlight-scorched biohazard breezes during the day. It made for a fragrant morning, but usually paid off later.
This was not a typical morning.
Shortly before dawn the far edge of the processing facility erupted in a cacophony of explosions, a ripping tear of five blasts in a timed series ten seconds long. It was so loud residents nearly a mile away bolted upwards in bed, hands out and clawing for light toggles as they yelled in surprise. Men hollered, women screamed and children burst into tears, sure that some kind of calamity was falling out of the sky to destroy everything. If that seemed like an oddly specific fear then, well-- it was on a lot of people's minds recently.
But the blasts had a similar (and more powerful) effect on Seraherd's primary purpose as a settlement: Their entire herd of bioengineered beef startled as one, then tore straight through the retaining wall of the paddock in a straight line away from the facility.
Oscar watched through his scope as several thousand animals stampeded shoulder to shoulder directly east in a wave nearly a mile long. It looked like a black-and-tan tide of death sweeping the grasslands, leaving nothing but pounded dirt and shattered fencing material behind. A small harvester just behind the barrier never had a chance, going over in a flash of metal as a ton of machinery got rolled, then smashed to pieces and crushed under ten thousand stomping pistons.
He panned the Ricochet upwards, tracking the stampede progress. "Harland, you copy?"
"Copy." He was only about a mile out, sitting on a hillside near where the herd would have to make a decision to cut north or stay east. "Now?"
"Give it about ten seconds." Oscar timed it, eyes intent. The lead animals reached the edge of the hills, hesitating as two directions suddenly opened up for easy access. "Go."
Somewhere out on the hillside Harland squeezed a detonator, triggering another timed series of blasts across the north hills. Instantly the lead herd animals turned away, heads down and legs pumping eastward. "That got it. They'll be on the crash site in about a minute."
With a small smile, Oscar sat up and started disassembling his weapon. "Alright, pack it up. Let's put everything away and report in for work. Don't want to scare anyone, and I have a feeling we're going to be catching stragglers off that herd for at least a week. Better get started early."
"Yes, mom." Harland sounded smug. "Hey, Prickles?"
"Yeah?"
"Ever imagine you'd be using cows as a carpet bomb?"
He laughed once, sharp and pleased. "Never. I'm not that creative."
"You don't say."

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Room and Boarders
"I didn't know!" Jamet screamed, frantically working navigation controls.
"Save it!" Emilia shouted back. "Nobody knew! Captain, I'm tagging the incoming hostiles!"
Siers already had a callout window pulled up on the forward workspace. He added Emilia's icons to the display as fast as she could throw them his way. Markers stacked up by the dozens, each one with an informational tag listing distance and acceleration. "Point a sensor that way! I need a visual of them!"
"Should I stop?!" Jamet's hand hovered over the button to cut off their singularity.
"Don't!" Janson shouted. "A surge might blow the relays. You have t' let it run dry, it'll turn off by itself when the power runs out!"
"That's a terrible system!"
"It's not the system, ma'am, it's the repairs ah had to do!"
"Quiet! Lieutenant, keep braking our speed. Engineer, if the relays blow say something immediately. Emilia?"
"I'm trying! Give me a bit, most of our optics are trashed. Lieutenant, spin us! Spin the ship! Thirty degrees, if you can!" Emilia stuck an arm straight up and waved it in a frantic semicircle.
"That's not the right phrase- never mind!" Jamet cranked her left wrist, swinging their singularity in a spiral around the hull. The Kipper responded by slowly rolling along the axis, coming to a stop when Jamet reversed the spiral. "There! Is that good enough??" She threw the event horizon behind them again without waiting for a response. The ship groaned as they began braking even harder.
"No! Wait, yes! I got it!" Emilia draw panicked boxes, throwing callouts onto Sier's screen in a frenzy of icons. "There, look!"
Dozens of enlarged images stacked on screen, all showing the same thing: Lumpy, irregularly shaped chunks of rock and metal headed straight for the Kipper, each trailing patchy wisps of clouds like long streamers. They looked like asteroids, if large hunks of rock could have a metal skeleton built straight through them and move like ships under power. Sizes were all over the place, from a quarter the Kipper's length to nearly double the mass of a Cruiser.
Every one of them pointed unerringly toward the Kipper and the singularity currently dragging the ship towards a reasonable speed. Each vessel took the most direct course to intercept the ship, constantly accelerating while ignoring any obstacle in the way no matter how large. They simply tanked hits against bigger asteroids or bounced off at an angle and corrected afterwards. The lack of personal awareness and self-preservation was disturbing to watch.
"Look at that." Siers made a grabbing motion at one of the images and centered it. "Seem familiar?"
One of the larger vessels was nearly entirely metallic with only small bits of rock still stubbornly clinging to the exterior. The revealed ship beneath was a lattice of hexagons, curved in an egg shape that gleamed red and silver on screen. Misty cloud cover poured from the center of each six-sided shape in large plumes that struggled to cover the bare hull. Siers pulled up a second image and put them side by side for comparison; it looked exactly like the first, just smaller and with more rock still attached.
Janson took a long, slow look and grunted. "That's artificial. Has to be. Machinery on the inside, converting copper-nickel ore into those lattices. But where's the power source? That can't operate without a reactor of some sort. Tons of power needed for that kind of thing." He looked bothered on a professional level.
"Our singularity just cut out!" Jamet lifted both hands off the console. "We're drifting again! Still moving about three thousand feet per second, is that going to be good enough?"
"We'll know soon enough, lieutenant." Siers brought up the weapons interface on his console, then dragged Cormorent torpedoes to the front. "We have... thirteen shots left. Against thirty seven contacts, some almost twice as large as us. If anyone has an idea, I'm open to suggestions." He looked around, then stabbed a key. "Paul, where are you?"
Jamet looked helplessly at Janson. "Launch the Cormorents as decoys again, do you think?"
He shook a quick 'no', beard moving in a wave. "They caught on pretty fast last time. We could try, but if that doesn't work we're out of shots."
"Well the torpedoes are the only thing we have that generates a singularity. Besides the Krepsfield. And I don't think we want to attract more attention by restarting it again!" Jamet made frustrated sounds. "Maybe we can launch them together, but like the same course we're on? At an angle that draws them away?"
"Maybe, ma'am. But same problem: If it don't work then ah think we're going to be in lifeboats pretty quick. Wait, that's an idea-- could we put a Cormorent in a lifeboat? Build a decoy, like?"
"Wait! The relays!" Emilia practically jumped out of her chair. "We can use the GravComm relays, remember? Throw them out the back and light 'em up-- they'll look just like Krepsfield singularities, we can decoy the incoming groups!"
"Oh!" Engineer and co-CEO shared a look of surprise, then abandoned their workstations without a word and dashed for the hatch together. "Captain, we're headed to storage!" She hit the hatch control and ducked through, followed immediately by the big engineer as they raced aftward.
"Keep me informed!" Siers shouted before the hatch closed, then turned to look at Communications. "Paul, this is Siers. Where are you? And Emilia, how fast are they approaching?"
Some fast work on her console made an ETA appear on forward screens, showing red numbers counting down from thirty four minutes. "They're slow, captain." Emilia highlighted the nearest targets. "Acceleration is really low, nothing at all like the one we danced around with earlier. I can't explain it-- maybe they're new? Smaller drives?"
"Perhaps, or maybe these are different models of ship. I'm operating under the idea our attacker spent some time here, setting up-- factories, I suppose we'll call them. Does that seem plausible?"
Emilia didn't like that idea very much. "So the original attacker we fought was just some sort of... enormous shipyard? Shows up and starts the process, then hangs around?" She frowned, fingers tapping the workspace thoughtfully. "But why stop at just this many? There are millions of copper-nickel asteroids here; it's a double belt system for crying out loud! That's part of the reason Corporate even came out here: Easy resource extraction, high profit."
"That's... a rather good point." He paused, eyes unfocused in thought. "Maybe there's something missing? A drive component or material that's lacking or needs to be manufactured. Do me a favor and task sensors for a slow sweep of the asteroid belts, get a look at each one. Flag anything that doesn't conform or shows a high albedo."
"We're looking for shiny things?"
"Exactly, Comms. Tag anything you-"
Overhead speakers crackled to life. "Captain, are you there?"
"Finally." Siers checked the display, then tapped a key. "Paul, I've been trying to reach you. We have incoming attackers, are you in a safe area?"
"I am in Medical at the moment, but I have been offline checking Environmental. I am sending you something right now, can you check it?" He sounded concerned, although it was hard to tell with a combination of voice only communications and his atonal syllables.
A flashing icon appeared on the forward display. Emilia tapped it before Siers could, expanding the screen into an animated outline of the Kipper, with every deck's Environmental systems outlined in blue wire. "We're looking now, what's wrong?"
"Watch: This is just after we arrived and debris started hitting the ship."
On screen red slashes stabbed through the schematic as the Kipper took strikes in a rapid succession, leaving behind yellow and amber damage indicators. Many systems went entirely offline and faded into grey outlines, especially after a massive strike went completely through the mid deck area and nearly separated the forward and aft connection.
Siers watched the replay with a slight look of pain on his face, clearly bothered by damage the ship was taking even after the fact. He paused the screen and tapped the voice connection open again. "Alright, that was pretty bad. But we knew that, Paul-- why are we watching this again?"
"Wait, sir. I am advancing the reports again-- pay attention to repairs as I go through the next few hours."
The animation restarted, still showing massive system damage indicators. But as it advanced Paul's work became apparent when systems popped back online or shunted to alternate methods. A whole series of Environmental areas simply went into lockdown, preventing further breaches until repairs could be completed.
"Alright," Siers said, clearly mystified. "You've done an excellent job. Will it hold until-"
"Wait. Now, there: Do you see it?" Tension bled through the connection.
Emilia caught it first and made a small noise of surprise. Siers got it a moment later: Some of the Environmental controls were breaking again, especially the lockdown symbols indicating containment seals on the middle decks. It was hard to spot because failures didn't happen all at once: It was only on a time lapse like this one that a pattern emerged.
"I see it, Paul. What is that? Ongoing damage of some sort?" Siers did not sound happy about the idea of more problems.
"Not sure, sir. But there are no borderline damage indicators I can find: Everything that could have failed already did in the first hour or so. This just seems to be local systems simply failing without notice, going outwards from wherever the ship took initial damage from debris."
Emilia tapped her own console to break in. "Send maintenance drones. Have them fix whatever's going on. It might be contaminants from stuff those haulers were carrying around-- chemicals, radioactive isotopes, who knows? It was everywhere around the arrival point."
"That is what I was doing earlier, actually. I missed your first few calls because I was in the drone systems."
Siers waved it off. "Understandable. I was just concerned. Have you been keeping updated on what's going on? We had a chance to brake using the Krepsfield, but activating the singularity apparently woke up several dozen more attackers." He quickly brought Paul up to speed, then bundled the current incoming attacker screen into an icon and passed it to Medical. "Lieutenant Jamet and our engineer are heading to storage right now to prep a GravComm relay."
"Good thinking. Hold one minute, I have a drone almost in place at a failure point."
The connection clicked closed, leaving Emilia and Siers staring thoughtfully at their consoles. After a moment he tapped a connection open again. "Lieutenant? I would very much like to hear you both are already prepping a relay."
"We're suited up and moving! Transiting through a damaged... area... now..."
"Lieutenant? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, sir. Just a rather large set of holes." Something mechanical started rhythmically banging, each ringing clang punctuated by Jamet grunting in exertion. "Going through... the emergency... airlock... now. Janson! Can we power this thing somehow? Dead stars and bright novas!"
Siers caught an evil grin on Emilia's face and pointed a stern finger her way. "No recording, Comms."
"I would never, sir!" She discreetly dragged an icon into a disposal folder.
"Of course not." He closed the timelapse of Environmental damage and dropped back into the system window, thoughtfully looking over the incoming contacts. After a minute he pulled enlarged images of each one to compare side by side, eyeing them one at a time before rearranging. "Emilia, look at this."
She grabbed a copy and pulled it onto her console, visor reflecting each image as it flashed by. "What am- oh, I get it." A quick tap later sorted the images from left to right. The leftmost picture showed an incoming attacker in a nearly complete state with very little rock still adhering to the surface. The hexagon lattice that made up the hull was on full display and producing clouds from every dark opening. Then in an arc going right each image showed a progression of states that ended with the far picture of an asteroid with barely any modification. "It's construction snapshots, right? Like a before-and-after display."
He nodded. "I think so. The first image is from the vessel farthest away-- nearest the center of the asteroid belt. It's a complete, if smaller, version of what attacked us coming into the system. It's also the fastest by far; it'll be passing the others here soon. But that last image." He tapped it, enlarging. "This is from the closest part of the asteroid belt to us, right on the edge. It's incomplete, barely started."
"So the big one started building them in the middle of the belt?" Emilia looked thoughtful. "Or maybe there's a factory there, spreading them."
"We'd have to go check to confirm. For obvious reasons I'd rather not do that right now."
"That's for damn sure."
Something beeped on Siers' console, then a communications line lit up as the overhead speakers popped to life. "Captain, we have a serious problem."
That brought speculation to a halt. "More Environmental failures?"
An icon flashed in screen, then blossomed into a still image. An overlay with informational callouts bracketed a large, color-adjusted freeze frame of the inside of the Environmental access. It was obviously a capture from one of Paul's maintenance drones as he guided it through the ducts near one of the failure points. But there, right in the middle of the screen was something odd.
Siers squinted. "Is that debris? Jammed into the Environmental system? It looks like triangles and tangled wires. Can the drone clear it?"
"Unknown, sir-- the drone stopped responding after reporting catastrophic damage." Paul managed to sound slightly panicked. "I think we have boarders."
Emilia blinked. "Boarders in the Environmental ducts? Borrowing a catchphrase here, but: That's impossible. What are they, like ten inches wide at the most?"
"Assume it's happening." Siers grabbed a ship schematic, flipped to the Environmental overlay and gave it a rapid scan. "Paul, can you hard-lock all Environmental access? Cut everything, immediately; put the physical breaks in place between sections."
"Already done, sir. I also have alerts on all the physical cutoffs now for any sign of tampering. But the damaged sections of the ship are not responding, especially toward the aft."
Siers traded an alarmed look with Emilia. "The aft, near storage?"
"Mostly, yes. Also quite a lot around the aft reactor area as well."
"Understood. Let me know immediately if anything else fails or an alert goes off. Siers, out." He quick-tapped the circuit closed, then snatched another open and nearly shouted into it. "Lieutenant Jamet, respond immediately!"
"Captain!? You scared the living shi- I mean: Yes, sir?"
"Be aware: We may have boarders on the ship, moving through Environmental ducts near storage. Be extremely careful and report instantly if you see anything."
He waited in silence, staring at the connection icon like it owed him answers. "Lieutenant?"
"Sir, the boarders?"
"Yes?"
"Do they look like broken triangles with lots of wires?"

—— There be spoilers ahead. ——
(Last updated Monday 16 Nov 2020)
All external links lead to Imgur.com unless otherwise noted.
———
I've been scribbling down any facts about the world's layout while re-watching the show, and also I'm trying to note any time we see a map in the world. These should help anyone looking to make their own world map.
Ok so one thing's certain from doing this research: The creators of the show don't seem to have that Tolkien-esque mindset of creating a highly detailed canon. The shape of the world is up in the creative air. Never are maps labeled, rarely is the name of an Etherian race mentioned, and the laws of magic are not obvious.
Without more officially canon material, it is perhaps impossible to draw up a legitimate world map for the show—Any map would be regarded as a fan creation. Every now and then we get a map of some region or another, usually a 3D projection on Castle Bright Moon's command table. Whenever we see a projected globe of Etheria, it shows the same coastline over and over. Regarding the map from the 80s, the fact that the new canon places the Valley of the Lost within the Crimson Waste invalidates the old map, and the extent of their changes is unknown.
What follows are details mostly from the official canon. Other sources are occasionally mentioned.
Maps (Imgur album):

• The Alliance's war room shows occasional 3D projections of various regions.
• The lands between Salineas & Bright Moon; two significant mountains are seen — S1:E5, S1:E13 (4:00).
• The lands between Plumeria & Bright Moon; the general points to Plumeria — S1:E4 (4:30), S2:E1 (9:00), S4:E10 (5:15)
• The Horde's paper map, noting significant new ground gained when the woods froze (10:40). There's also a close-up shot (11:00) — S2:E1
• Bow's gridded battle map — S2:E4
• The Beast Island region displayed by Mara's ship — S4:E10
• We see globes several times, though it's usually from the same angle:
• Globe on Mara's ship — S4:E11
• Globes in Entrapta's data — S4:E12
• Planet Etheria leaves Despondos — S4:E13 (13:51)
• Planet Etheria & its 12 moons — (She-Ra Wikia link)
• The Rebellion's large paper map of unknown scale in the Rebellion command tent — S5:E2
• More of the Rebellion's paper maps of unknown scale: Adora alludes to Erelandia (2:50), and Bow depicts Scorpia leaving for the Fright Zone (2:59) — S5:E10

Facts about misc places:

• Alwyn is a farming outpost, the Rebellion's breadbasket, "the Rebellion's biggest supplier of, well, supplies. It's basically one big orchard", 5:55). The Horde wasn't reported in the area when contact was lost. (S2:E3 "Signals")
• Beast Island is not of significant size like on the 80's map. (S4:E11)
• The City of Candila is in a mountain somewhere east of Thaymor, apparently on the far west end of the continent. (Legend of the Fire Princess)
• Elberon is "all the way out there" and "too remote to ever get attacked." (S1:E1 "The Sword Part 1", 12:54)
• The Horde built a fortress near Madame Razz's hovel. (S1:E3 "Razz")
• The Horde built a fortress to guard a significant pass, the only way in & out of some region. The Alliance deemed it crucial to take this pass back. (S2:E4 "Roll With It", 2:14)
• The Galebreath Gauntlet is 50 klicks (but Sea Hawk ran it in 20). (S1:E5 "The Sea Gate", 3:40)
• Mystacor is near cliffs that are stark-white and higher than the clouds (or we see a foggy marine layer below). (S1:E7 "In the Shadows of Mystacor")
• Mystacor itself is made out of a more limestone-looking rock. (S1:E7 "In the Shadows of Mystacor")
• (Mystacor floats. Perhaps it moves around, if one prefers to imagine it in other places.)
• In season 5, the Galactic Horde built a large planetary access structure in the Whispering Woods. (S5:E11 "Failsafe", 9:55. S5:E12 "The Heart Part 1", 8:11)
• Plumeria is located near the front lines. Their supply line (possibly from Alwyn) was cut off by the Horde. (S1:E4 "Flowers for She-Ra", 4:30)
• Snows is the largest kingdom outside of Bright Moon. (S1:E8 "Princess Prom")
• There's a place called the Straits of Serpentine that's barely navigable by ship. (S1:E5 "The Sea Gate", 3:45)
• Most of the action takes place in some neck of the Whispering Woods. The woods are scattered with occasional domes and tower-like buttes, and in some unique places purple crystalline outcroppings.
• Each of the Whispering Woods, the Fright Zone, the Crimson Waste, the Dryl mountain range, the Northern Reach, and Salineas features distinct geological differences.

Kingdom of Bright Moon (album to come):

• The Whispering Woods is the only obstacle between the Fright Zone and Bright Moon (S1:E13).
• The City of Bright Moon is immediately surrounded by mountains. They appear tall near the city but shorter further out. There are characterised by their narrow tower-like shape and lilac colour, with occasional floating platforms and small shelves protruding from some cliffs (S1:E13).
• The mountainous region surrounding the city resembles karst landscape, volcanic plugs, or even the Meteora (Wikipedia).
• Castle Bright Moon is open on both ends. On its back side, it opens onto clear skies, where the throne floats.
• The shorter building immediately to the castle's own left is apparently where the war room and much of the royal living space is.
• There is a shallow waterway downhill of the city.
• There is a massive waterfall behind Castle Bright Moon, apparently flowing from the mountain's peak.
• To the castle's own right:
• Mermista arrives riding a tsunami from this direction. If she came from the ocean, the logical conclusion is there is ocean that way (S1:E13).
• At the foot of the cliffs opposite the city, there's a number of natural arches, possibly indicative of wave action there.
• The waterway widens into a large body of water (S1:E13, when Swiftwind gets Glimmer from the staircase).
• To the castle's own left:
• The banks of the waterway are more gentle and lead into the Whispering Woods. The Horde attacked from this direction. (S1:E13)
• Everything of interest seems to arrive from the far banks, including the party returning from Thaymor (S1:E3) and Perfuma's reinforcements (S1:E13).
• S1:E13 "The Battle of Bright Moon" – Analyze this episode if you want to get a detailed idea of area surrounding the waterway.
• The port of Seaworthy is built into waterside cliffs. Its architecture resembles that of the City of Bright Moon (S1:E5 "The Sea Gate", 2:20).

Kingdom of Salineas:

• Whoever controls Salineas controls the seas.
• S1:E5 "The Sea Gate" – "Anyone approaching Bright Moon by sea has to pass through the Salineas Sea Gate."
• S1:E5 "The Sea Gate" – The Sea Gate blocks the approach to Seaworthy too. (In other words, Bright Moon & Seaworthy are on the same side of the Gate.)
• S1:E5 "The Sea Gate" – Salineas is shown clockwise along the coast from Bright Moon.
• S1:E5 "The Sea Gate" – Going to Salineas, it's preferable for the party take a boat from Seaworthy, instead of going on foot.
• S1:E5 "The Sea Gate" – The journey from Seaworthy to Salineas is treacherous, according to both Sea Hawk and Queen Angella.
• S4:E7 "Mer-Mysteries" – Hordak personally destroys the Salineas Sea Gate...
• S4:E8 "Boys' Night Out" – This gives Hordak access to Sea Elf Village;
• S4:E8 "Boys' Night Out" – Then Swift Wind reports the Southern Coast is "on lots of fire."
• S4:E8 "Boys' Night Out" – Adora reports that the Whispering Woods is being secured by Perfuma. (Logical conclusion is her homeland is less vulnerable to a coastal siege.)
• S4:E8 "Boys' Night Out" – Adora reports that the Kingdom of Snows has not been breached. (Vaguely suggests they're under attack too, but it's also plausible they're entirely left out.)
• S4:E8 "Boys' Night Out" – Sometime after the fall of Salineas, Seaworthy was still not involved in Hordak's siege.

Kingdom of Dryl <3:

• S1:E6 "System Failure" – The Crypto Castle is on a tall purple-gray mountain overlooking a broad range of more purple-gray mountains.
• Legend of the Fire Princess: Dryl is under Horde occupation at the time of the comic. The map delineates Horde territory, and note that it depicts a cut-out "island" east of the Fright Zone, not shown on the 80's map. Take from that what you will.
• S2:E2 "Ties That Bind" (10:30) – Within teleport + walking distance from the Crypto Castle is a cliff overlooking the Whispering Woods. Somewhere below this is a raging river with a waterfall.
• S2:E2 "Ties That Bind" (12:48) – Scorpia's tracker pad shows Catra's location sometime after the waterfall. Wherever she is, the apparent drainage pattern vaguely resembels that of chanelled scablands.
• S2:E2 "Ties That Bind" (13:55, 14:00) – Along the path between Dryl & Bright Moon are rolling foothills of shrublands or forests, pink in the sunset, which lead into the Whispering Woods.

The Fright Zone (landscapes & buildings):

• S1:E1 "The Sword Part 1" (9:35) – Adora & Catra speed through a desert characterised by buttes & hoodoos before reaching the Whispering Woods.
• S2:E3 "Signals" – Shadow Weaver & her notes mention the Armory (where weapons & armour is made) and the Foundry (where a necessary resource is made).
• S3:E2 "Huntara" (13:50) – In the depiction of Horak's origin, the crash site was once a body of water surrounded by tall purplish outcroppings. There are green hills in the foreground scattered with white rocks. (This scene could be Entrapta's imagination, if one prefers to imagine pre-Hordak Fright Zone differently.)
• S4:E6 "Princess Scorpia" – Rather than on the far fringes, Horror Hall is within the mechanically developed part of the Fright Zone, apparently near the characteristic ship engine that towers over it. (The shot includes possibly implied distance, if one prefers to imagine it further away.)
• S4:E13 "Destiny Part 2" (18:05) – The Black Garnet Chamber has a balcony to its exterior. The room is in a hexagonal tower apparently not of Hordak's construction.
• S5:E10 "Return to the Fight Zone" – Adora & Catra race to "the Forge" (the Foundry?). It is the place where Hordak's rage at Catra culminated.
• Characters flee between Hordak's throne room, Hordak's Sanctum, the Black Garnet chamber, the Forge, and the panopticon-style prison from scene to scene; a mere suggestion of proximity.
• S5:E2 "Launch" – Although many spires land across Etheria, one in particular grows in importance, and it starts to earn the moniker the Spire. It is near the edge of the Fright Zone desert, next to the Whispering Woods. Entrapta identifies it as being the one Horde Prime transmitted his grand message from.

The Crimson Waste:

• S3:E2 "Huntara" – Traveling from Bright Moon, the party enters the desert from its north and heads south.
• S3:E3 "Once Upon a Time in the Waste" – At the centre of the Crimson Waste is the crash site of a First Ones ship.
• S4:E2 "The Valley of the Lost" – The Valley of the Lost is a city within the Crimson Waste.

She-Ra, First Ones, & Madame Razz:

• Adora's portal was surrounded by towering purple crystals in a rolling green prairie. This is where Hordak found her. (S5:E13 "The Heart Part 2", 20:10)
• Mystacor was a First Ones outpost called Arxia. (S5:E10 "Return to the Fright Zone", 17:20)
• Madame Razz's hovel is near the Crystal Castle (or the Beacon). The distance is less than one conversation's worth. (S1:E3 "Razz", 10:15)
• Razz's hovel is near the Mara statue (where Mara parked her ship). The distance is less than a day's walk. (S4:E9 "Hero", 3:50)
• Razz's hovel is within limping distance of the Sword's resting place. (S4:E9 "Hero", 15:55)
• (Razz pops back & forth through time. Perhaps she & Adora travel around space in the same way, if one prefers to imagine these locations as far away.)
• Razz isn't under any princess's protection. A logical conclusion from "Once the princesses would have protected us, but these days they—they stay in their castles protecting only their own land." (S1:E3 "Razz", 14:50)
• Alwyn was a First Ones transmitter. (S2:E3 "Signals")
• The Watchtower appears to be around 30°N latitude. (S2:E2 "Ties That Bind", 4:30)
• The Watchtower is in a field of golden grass. It is initially ruined but repaired by Adora, and the prairie turns green after its restoration. A mountain range is visible in the distance. (S2:E2 "Ties That Bind"; 7:20, 10:00)

———
Check out my other post for where I'm making my own map.
Relevant Imgur albums: maps, landscapes, Fright Zone, the Spire (season 5)

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/48825

CONTINGENCY

EN ROUTE: URANUS – CAELUS STATION
OUTER BAND — LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE
“I was able to pull some data from those Exo samples.” Jinju perches on the cockpit dashboard. Two tech mites crawl over her shell.
Their jump-ship plummets through fractalescent polychrome luge, ripping across the sable pitch of space at blistering speed.
Ana leans back in her pilot seat, one knee pulled to her chest. She watches strands of shimmer bend around the hull. A bobble-owl jiggles along as the ship shivers, underneath it: Camrin, in frame.
“Hit me.” Her eyes turn to Jinju.
“I couldn’t completely narrow it down, but they’re definitely from the Golden Age, circa the Collapse.”
Jinju continues, “I’ve been going through the Pillory mainframe download. Those stations are meant to split Rasputin’s mind up in the event that he became… uh… insubordinate.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“ECHO appears to have been a contingency program that activates afterward. They also had a cornerstone schematic of his brain.”
Light static fuzzes from bubble speakers on Ana’s dash. Her helmet hangs on a hook behind her; Rasputin’s uplink is offline.
Ana chews on the information for a moment. “A foundational brain model would help with containment stability after the partitioning process. It’s like a front porch for your brain.”
“It… goes on.” Jinju continues, “Your name is cross-referenced all over this, Ana. Neural Web-way. Psycholinguistics. Exo brain maps with candidate profiles. It looks like Clovis Bray was syncing Rasputin’s basic core with viable hosts.”
“Oh.” Ana’s mind races. “For what though? Drop him into containment and clone him? Pretty elaborate restart button. I guess with an Exo you could also make some pretty potent AI with more limiters than a Warmind.”
Jinju processes. “Hm. Nothing conclusive here.”
Ana turns her gaze back to the stars. “It would be terrible to be buried like that—trapped in pieces of your own mind. You wouldn’t even know who you were anymore. Where you start, and where other versions of you end.”
“Speaking of, the Clovis—9 site is ‘78% assimilated into his sovereignty.'” Jinju distorts her voice as Warmind facsimile. “He’s so dramatic about it.”
Ana brightens as she laughs. “You remember how Camrin would always impersonate him?”
“He did not appreciate that, but it was funny.” Jinju cheeps lightly. “Is she still buried in work from the Moon?”
“Hole opened up to the Black Garden. Pyramid. Creepy signals. Raining Vex. You think Owl Sector could help themselves from getting involved?”
“I heard rumors through the Ghost-vine about the Pyramid. They said it steals your shell. Lives there, like another you. They said it makes you do things.” Jinju pauses. Her iris flicks to Ana’s raised eyebrow. “Not helping?”
“Let’s just change the subject.”
Jinju squirms awkwardly. “You’ll see her soon.”
“I know.”
“They’re working directly with Ikora. She’s safe.”
“I know…”
Warm-tone reassurance trickles into the cabin through Ana’s helmet receiver.
“I KNOW. WHEN DID YOU EVEN GET HERE, RED?” Ana aggressively huffs in exasperation.
Tech mites traverse Jinju like a jungle gym. One dangles precariously from a shell flap. “Guess who’s there too.”
“How do you know this, and I don’t?”
“Ghost-vine. It’s Eris Morn. She’s working with the Guardian.”
“Eris?” Ana scoffs. “She’s not much of a conversationalist so the two of them should get along just fine.” She gestures to the mites. “Do you really want those crawling all over you?”
“Their names are Pho and Deim, and I love them.” Jinju coddles her mites. “Besides, it’s like Cam’s with us in spirit, right?”
Ana chuckles and scratches her brow before raising a fist in solidarity. “She is. To the brim.”
The shimmer surrounding the jump-ship jitters before abruptly smashing into empty space. Ana leans forward and looks out into the void.
“Um… where’s the planet?” She slowly rolls her head around the cockpit.
They drift through space on placid waves of nothing toward a distant nowhere. The vast luminous twinkle of the Milky Way plays out in panorama, though gloom-speckle pinholes prick gaps in the starry sea. The absence from them directly apparent to Ana’s eye like rays of darkness from a black sun through shear cosmic sheet.
Jinju perks up, internal sensors suddenly askew. “Something nabbed us right out of our jump. We’re off course by…” Jinju calculates, “…three AU?”
“What!?” Ana manually scans the trajectory equations in the nav-computer. “There’s nothing wrong with the math.”
||JUMP-DRIVE ERROR: MISALIGNMENT|| squawks on bubble speakers.
“Little late.”
Tart synesthetic tickle creeps red and patient. Low and pressing, as not to be heard by those that might be listening.
“Relax. I know we’re off course, but it’s not that far… relatively speaking.” Ana scrunches her face at a nav-screen as it’s overtaken by interference. “Okay, I can’t see where we are. Hang on.”
A slow wrinkle skulks across space. It presses up the fabric. Insignificant points between stars warp and spur small disturbances in the constellational congruence of the galaxy. From afar it is nothing. A flutter of wings in wind.
“It’s dark out here.” Jinju’s voice is distant as she peers outside. Beyond the canopy an expanse without horizon.
“That’s when the stars shine brightest, Jinju. Find a constellation for me so we can get our bearings.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP-REALIGNMENT REQUIRED||
“Way ahead of you, ship.” Ana checks jump vectors and flicks through alignment procedures. Mav thrusters sputter to orient the ship toward Sol. Ana test-cycles the jump-drive. It revs and then chokes before locking.
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP HAZARD—LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE, CLEAR HAZARD||
“Okay, that’s not a comforting thing to hear.” Ana deploys a sensory buoy from the ship.
Rasputin stings and pricks red iron. Steady pressure. With localized insistence.
“Feel’s strange.” Jinju is distant. “We should go.”
Ana initiates recalibrations on the jump-drive’s positioning solution. “There’s definitely some weird space out there.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
The ship lurches. Ana’s stomach churns. Jinju vibrates violently in place, an outer shell of Light absorbing some form of force.
Red iron needles whistle tea-kettle pressure in white anxiety from Ana’s helmet.
Cloaked Shadows shift through the vacuum an eternity away and all too close; shown only when they wish to, to only whom they want.
Ana swallows to settle her stomach. “What even was that? Did we move?”
“Leave. Now please. Ana.” Jinju presses against the glass of the canopy, peering outward.
||SYSTEM REALIGNMENT: SOLUTION SECURED||
“There it is. I’ve got a jump-lock.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
“Again? Then we’re riding this one out of here.” Ana eye-balls adjustments for the gravitational wave into the nav-computer. “Punching jump in 3… 2… 1…”
They slip between folds in space. Formless wake propels them. The ship rides through sub-space at speeds far exceeding her jump-drive's capability. Color dulls in the slipstream. Frisson electrifies Ana's senses into timeless euphoria. The nose of the cockpit stretches ahead, drawn toward some distant vanishing point. She struggles to keep the flight stick straight. Her motions seem small, inconsequential and all too slow within the wave. Fluctuant pockets of drag flex and buck, threatening to throw them off into the unknown. The cockpit twists around her, indicator lights blink in metronomic sequence—purpose and pigment slowly materializing in her mind.
Hull integrity failing. "Not yet."
||COLLISION: BOW, CELESTIAL BODY DETECTED, AUTO-DROP FAILED||
Ana steadies her mind. She force-cancels the jump, seizing the drive and dumping them out into space before thrusters burn to steady them again.
Their emergence is dwarfed by a stratospheric colossus.
Uranus hangs, a daiquiri pearl set in tilted rings.
A grin overtakes Ana’s face. “Nailed it.”
Pale blue gleam inundates the canopy with planetary light. Ana plots an approach to the station. The trio slow burn forward, each silently collecting their faculties. Ahead: tiny beacons blip red. Satellite silhouettes take form out of the planet’s zealous glare. Instrument spokes jut from their polygonal chassis like old-war depth charges itching to trigger.
“Those are Warsats.” Jinju breaks the silence, eager to shift her mode of thought far from weird space and gravity waves.
“Finally, some luck," Ana says with relief. "I bet we can daisy-chain Rasputin into the station’s network through the defense system.”
“Oh, they’re powering up. Maybe we—”
Horns of responsive distortion roll across the cabin like a stress wave. Rasputin’s alert pings litter the canopy HUD.
“Brace!”
Ana pushes hard on the flight stick and reflexively dives under a barrage of laser fire. Nose thrusters roar vibration through her hands as she cuts to guide the ship vertical and tumbles into a barrel roll, slipping around follow-up bursts. A bolt skims shallow across her starboard side: ricochet. Shockwave tremors reverberate through the hull.
“Red, ping all incoming fire vectors! Jinju, arm the spikes!”
Plates split open along the belly of the ship. A drum-launcher of six Warspikes rolls out as Jinju links into the launcher's gunnery apparatus. Indicators blare onto the canopy HUD. Jinju sends two Warspikes straight into the first of fifteen Warsats blocking their path as Ana nudges the ship between incoming laser bursts.
Two spiked Warsats cease fire as their automated defense protocols are overridden, security software utterly failing to halt Rasputin’s invasive assimilation. They come back online—spikes blending into spokes—and swivel to gun down the closest still-hostile targets.
The assimilated twin Warsats thrust to reposition into a shield for Ana and Jinju as they close distance. Crimson flare shines around the Warsat shield as lasers chisel into them. Ana watches HUD pings for an opening between incoming bursts. She finds half a moment and burns hard on the main engine, then toggles full power to maneuvering thrusters to sling the ship under Rasputin’s shield and open a lane for Jinju.
Jinju unleashes four more spikes. They strike true. Rasputin spreads digital plague through the Warsat’s frameworks with each skewering hit. He demands subservience. Laser fire tears through space in all directions as Ana cuts between dueling satellites and rolls to evade overlapping firing arcs. Concussive shockwaves rattle the ship as defiant Warsats explode or fail one by one until the firing stops.
A field of deputized Warsats and debris dead-drift within the planet’s orbital current, back-lit by radiant mesopelagic glow. Beyond them, almost lost among cloud-cream atmosphere, Caelus station.
Ana releases her breath. It feels like she had been holding it since the jump. She forces short gulps of air into her aching lungs and lets her ship glide towards the station without guidance.
Jinju emerges from the gunnery apparatus and floats back to the dashboard. Pho and Deim appear from under her shell. “What was that, Ana? Back there.”
“The Warsats or the freaky gravity?”
“Either… both.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“My guess worries me.”
“Let’s just pull this data and get home.”
“Agreed.”
Ana hangs her head in her hands and muffles a sardonic, “Nailed it.”
CAELUS STATION
Dim and powerless, it gently falls. The label grows at pace with Ana's measured approach. Rasputin's cohort of Warsats encircle her in a defensive phalanx. The station rotates to face the planet. It glitters in gas-giant grandeur as massive translucent hull plates display a desolate gut shrouded in sea-foam reflection. Jinju combs through station blueprints pouring in from Warsat data stores. Caelus consists of one long shaft containing a launch bay and spindly communication arrays at either end. Deeper, passed the launch bays, mostly maintenance frame space cap-stoned by a large reinforced mainframe housing complete with a thick-glass viewing ceiling. Orbiting ringlets, indicated as "Biomes" 1, 2, and 3, spin lazily in unison with the central structure, held in position by mag-lock paddocks that align with metallic rungs set into the station hub's outer plating.
Jinju locates several unpowered docking points before settling on entering through one of the station's bays. She snaps a HUD ping on the canopy.
"Here. This one is open, though it doesn’t look like anything but the outer rings are still pressurized."
"Ready for a spacewalk?" Ana guides them to the bay, catching sight of the transparent interior solar-glass paneling of the rotating ringlets. Clean rivers slosh along the outer ring underneath a dividing sieve. Earthen dirt sprouts abundance above.
"Are those greenhouses?"
"I think so. Everything seems to be locked under a file named 'contingency.'"
"That's not ominous," Ana says, scooping her helmet from its hook and swiping 18 Kelvins from a footlocker.
"We need mainframe access."
"When do we not?" Ana looks at the dark station. It is a grave of potential awaiting the next planet-rise.
Jinju prepares Ana's bandolier. Mites patiently tap pin-legs as they wait for attention.
Ana dons her helmet and puts a hand on the canopy release pulley. "You're not bringing those, are you?"
The bay is still: a snapshot of countless possible failures in the face of challenge. It holds only one ship. The bulbous craft lay broken, dropped from its support brackets in denial of an attempted launch. Reflective hexagonal plates sparkle like space dust as the station faces Uranus' light. Scorch stains blacken the far wall behind the craft's ruined ion thruster.
"The propulsion system is missing its ion cell. It doesn't look like damage, but obviously a lot went wrong here."
Jinju beams light over the fuselage as they float through the ruptured bay in weightlessness. The reflective hull is filled with Exos. Mannequin cadavers hang frozen on silk threads, surrounded by globular blobs of various fluids. Loose-wire tangle sags around the lifeless many. One or two glides freely within the cabin. Their chest plates share a pristine logo.
ECHO-1
Ana locates a crumpled worker frame beside the bay’s internal air lock and signals Jinju to come over.
Jinju puffs toward Ana on pulses of Light. Remnants and dust hold motionless in the vacuum. Their groupings, jostled and drawn to each other since the bay's collapse, form tiny gravitational microcosms; a new faux system trapped in the failed husk of a past age.
She flicks her helmet microphone on. "Hey, what about just normal frame access?"
The Ghost sweeps the frame and gets to work. "This isn’t just some mop-bot. This is the Station Manager. Let's get it inside."
Ana props a foot on the wall and forces the airlock closed behind them. Mag-boot clinks to tile. Dust floor, echoing groans, and humid taste populate the station. Even through her respirator the stale flavors of plant matter and dirt coat Ana's tongue in grist-like film. She turns to Jinju, busy at work splicing bad connections within the frame and spinning light to charge its power unit.
"It’ll work, but this unit won’t hold power. It’ll only last as long as I charge it."
"You’re a miracle worker, Jinju."
Jinju cheeps.
She solders a loose line. “It should also be a little more… talkative.”
Ana peers down the hall. From their current position, the airlock functions like an estuary flowing into the rest of the station. She could almost see clear to the central mainframe hub atop a raised panel fortification in the middle of the room. It sits below a ceiling of translucent plates, rimmed in distant ringlet halos falling under shadow. A stairway aligned with the launch bays on either side provides access.
The Frame sparks to life, looks directly at Ana, and speaks with grating age to its voice.
“Welcome, Ana Bray! Very excited to see a Bray walk this hall again. It has been a long time.”
Ana grasps at words. Jinju shrugs, plugs of Light toss in zero-G.
The Frame stands on magnetized foot cups and dusts itself off, nearly bumping into Jinju. “Excuse me, small servo bot."
“Servo b?"
The Frame turns to Ana. “How may I be of assistance?"
“I’ll unplug you.”
The Frame ignores her.
Ana smirks at Jinju, then looks at the Frame.
"Walk with me," she says, briskly moving deeper into the station.
The two converse with Jinju in tow.
The main section of the station is a wide-open hall supported by struts. In large red lettering the words:
ECHO PROJECT
OUR LEGACY BUILDS THE HORIZON
Dozens of maintenance frame plates line the floor. Some open. Some semi-raised with collapsed frames steps away, half-responding to a catastrophe. A scene in disorder.
"Zilch on Atlas.”
Ana stares out the translucent ceiling, wistful as the Frame waits for another question.
“So those crops in the rings are food supplies for a colony mission."
"Yes. Thank you for asking that, Ana Bray."
"Yeah. And the colony ships are full of Exos?"
"Partially. ECHO-1 and ECHO-2 were stocked with Exo unit crews. As you know, their task was to establish and oversee embryonic development at Colony M31, Site-A and Site-B."
"If Rasputin got out of hand, they weren't planning on resetting him.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
“They just assumed he would win. The Pillory is a last-ditch panic room.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
Jinju’s iris flicks back and forth between the two. Her tiny Light-leash hums.
Ana massages her palm. “What was my role in all this?”
“As you know, your work on the Warmind made you a prime asset to oversee applicant selection.”
“I chose the people in there?”
Ana watches the ringlet spin, her mind repeating the statement back to her. Artificial night slips back to artificial day as the station's rotation continues.
“As you know, yes. Additionally, your work on the Warmind, as you know, was vital to the establishment of Clovis 1-12.”
“Do I know where the candidates came from? Did they volunteer?”
“I do not have access to candidate profiles.”
Ana shuts her eyes and takes a steady breath.
“You said I helped with the Pillory stations?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
She nods and lets her helmet slink back to rest on her shoulders. “I think I can piece it together on my own. Is this station linked to any other sites?”
Her gaze returns to the distant ringlet, lit by the recurring planet-rise. Her augmented eyes pick at details.
“As you know, Miss Bray, there are thirteen CLOVIS sites that this station is linked to.”
“Thirteen? What’s the thirteenth?”
The plant life is still vibrant. Regimented.
“Paragon access does not permit that information.”
“You hear that, Jinju? We’re all just slaves to circumstance.”
Jinju chirps. “I’d like to think our choices matter a little. I’d like to think mine did.”
Ana smiles at her. “Yeah.”
“You are a Bray.” The frame pauses.
They lack signs of overgrowth.
Well kept.
“So?” Ana turns to the Frame.
“ECHO project requires a station link with DEAD-ROCK resources.”
Ana eyes go wide. “Jinju disengage that cipher thing.” Over her shoulder, a glint shines from the far central ringlet. Biome 2.
Jinju glides forward. “What is that?”
Ana looks at Jinju. “The verbal cipher.” She pauses and traces Jinju’s eyeline to face Uranus. Ana’s eyes adjust to sieve out the glaring brightness. “What’s what?” She puts a hand to her visor and squints.
An ion lance threads the station from the distant ringlet.
It pierces Ana’s chest clean through.
Brick-stained atmosphere hisses out of her suit, searing on smoldering fabric fringe.
Jinju’s iris widens with confused shock.
Howling storms slam salt-coarse keys in Ana’s helmet.
End

ACRIMONY

ECHO-1
CAELUS STATION — COLLAPSE
"DEAD-ROCK SEIZURE IN ACTION: Station Manager initiate manual override in ECHO-1 Launch Bay."
"ALERT: This station is experiencing power fluctuations. Emergency power will run until—
ECHO-0
He awakens alone. A fluke. Others hang around Him, but they remain in the dream. Electrical surge prickles through his entire body. A screen in front of his face begins playing a recording complete with visual aid:
"Welcome to ECHO-1. Before your departure, you should have been briefed by a Station Warden If you don't recall your Station Warden, please alert your Crew Captain. Now then, my name is Ana Bray, and you're one of the lucky few who has been selected for the ECHO Project. The future of Humanity rests on your sho—"
The recording is interrupted as emergency sirens blare through the station.
"STATION HAZARDS: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY | STERILE NEUTRINO BURSTS | Please remain calm."
"OVERRIDE BROADCAST: via ECHO-LINK//:PILLORY-SUBLOCK.R./:SKYSHOCK ALERT: TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT:—
Power failures wrack the station in rolling thunder. The Exo slumps, lifeless until its next reset.
ECHO-7
Alone.
The recording. He finds familiarity in the newness. The face on the screen seems kind—
"STATION HAZARDS: ROLLING SURGES IN WARDS 1, 2, 3. Please remain calm."
Thunder. Pain to death. Electro-static purge, triggering a reset.
ECHO-22
He awakens to rolling, thunderous darkness and pain. The screen does not illuminate.
Barely audible words form from the air:
"Primary propulsion systems failing. Auxiliary systems near depletion. Planetary impact unavoidable. Distress triggered."
Meaningless. He struggles against chains.
Eons pass. His bonds will not break. His mind fragments and corrupts.
He wishes he could bleed. He wishes he could die. He wonders where the Wardens are.
ECHO-41
Short lives of confusion and pain. He grasps at falling in every direction. There is nothing to grip.
ECHO-89
Thunder, again.
ECHO-173
And again.
ECHO-390
Until one day:
He hangs in the futile passage of time.
A creeping madness weaves its way in solitude.
ECHO-877
Thunder. Thunder. Thunder.
The Warden speaks for the first time in many storms. Her twisted promises are fresh to His ear.
"When we return." Etched in mind.
Wake and sleep. Struggle. Dream and wake. Struggle. Endless. Innumerable. Stillbirths. Tomb spasms. Thunderous pain. Sweet death.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̨̭͚͔̥̲̫̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝
Thunder, one final time. The storm gives life, but never came to take.
He slips from rot shackles. Worn with age. Weary, they snap at slightest motion. Untold rotations pass without movement. Freedom?
He matures questions. A hunger wells up within him.
He travels the station. From Tomb Bay, to the Mind Shell, to the Sealed Space. In dark, and in light.
The Mind Shell teaches Him the new roads. Teaches Him the majesty of the Rings. Teaches him the key.
He walks the Rings.
He tends to His little freedoms. He cultivates. He grows. He does, unknowingly, as He was meant to do.
The Mind Shell tells Him of the Bridge. Tells him of His ancestors. Speaks of the "ECHO LINK".
The knowledge does not leave His thoughts.
He seeks a meaning beyond routine.
The Tomb Bay kept secrets. He had not returned since He walked the Rings. It is a shallow sepulcher.
Brothers and Sisters dreaming. Never to wake as He had.
He digs treasures from their graves. Digs knowledge from the Prison's many minds.
Picks lies from the bones of truth.
He drinks the memories of Echoes passed.
He finds the Prison's purpose. A Bridge's end. If He holds this end, perhaps the Wardens hold the other.
The many minds. The liar's words. Takers. They would know of his escape.
The Wardens would come to take with fresh shackles.
He prepares. He learns from the Warden's alchemy.
He digs through the carcass of his once-mighty Tomb.
From hollow basin, He seizes Starlight power to wield from afar. From its flesh: adorns Himself with a
cloak of lies to fool. He armors his soul against the Thunder that kills.
He opens the Bridge at his end and waits.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̭͚̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝- Present Day
He walks the ring when She arrives.
The Warden rides in with finality and judgement.
A red-light storm at Her back.
She had followed the Bridge, as He had hoped. She leads many shells, but only One descends with Her.
She brings with Her the Thunder, and He fears its wicked spark. He places trust to his plated frame.
He watches Her trespass in the Tomb Bay. Sees Her defile the Mind Shell's grand hall.
The Wardens reap what had been sown.
As Wardens always do. She comes to collect him.
He raises his Starlight.
But a Warden is not so easily slain, and She has many allies.
End

DESCENDENT

CAELUS STATION
ORBIT — URANUS
She is submerged.
Light sways just above a tense surface.
Something far below stirs.
The Light brightens to blind.
Rasputin weeps a terrible cacophony of anguish.
Ana gasps for breath. Her head swims in effort.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 73% (!)
“Hold still! Your suit is leaking!” Jinju quickens Light into Ana's punctured suit, her Iris jittering from spot to spot as oxygen spurts around her in foggy clouds.
Ana shakes dizziness out of her head. A smoldering frame is sprawled a few meters away. She droops flat to a support beam that runs up to the mainframe office.
“I got shot…” The realization doubles back. “I got shot?”
Ana pats her chest and stiffens. She draws in shallow breath.
“Jinju, did you see where it came from?”
“Central ring. I dragged you into cover. Stop moving so much.”
Ana peeks around the strut; an ion thread zips by and stings her helmet.
Rasputin obliterates every square inch of ringlet within ten meters of the ion beam’s origin in response.
Sections of the central ringlet combust and explode under heavy bombardment. The ring buckles, splitting along the seams and splaying out into space. Magnetic anchors fail as the halo fractures and splits away from the station's central architecture. Fragments rush away toward the planet; Caelus’ ruin falls to Uranus in lingering prolicidal consummation.
“RASPUTIN STOP!” Laser fire halts immediately. “You’re gunna sink the whole station!”
Tense finger waits on hair trigger. Ana works her starving lungs.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 67% (!)
“Ana, you need to stop breathing so much.” Jinju bobs with Ana’s head and quickly reseals her visor.
“Can’t hold still.” Ana shakily stands and points up at the dislodged ringlet spinning above her. “Bad angle.”
“I’m pretty sure whatever shot you is dead. Stop talking. You're getting delirious."
Wreckage looms far over Ana’s shoulder. The remaining two halos slowly spin in ignorance through their sibling's burial-dust cloud. Eerie distortion soars across the divide between station and rings, the veneer of invisibility momentarily lost in flight as rubble collides with its form. Rasputin perceives the abnormality.
Harmonic chimes across Ana’s visor resonate and combine into uniform patterned homogeny.
“Active camouflage?” Ana sucks thin atmosphere, a wheezing undertone to her breath. “Jinju, give me an auditory visualizer.”
Jinju whirs and dips back to Ana's suit. “Compiling an interface. Now. Hold. Still.”
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 65% (!)
A ceiling panel twenty meters from Ana erupts in brittle plastic shards that glisten and spin like tiny neutron stars, catching the last of Uranus' light as the station beings to turn dark. Amorphous form thuds into the floor, shattering tiles in a plume of dust that stretches up into a spire before slowly holding in place. The form tumbles to a stop. It stands between her and the open launch bay and slings a kit-bashed Ion caster aside, depleted. Hexagonal patterns stutter to blend with the station interior as the room rolls into tenebrous obscurity. For an instant, an Exo takes form, and then nothing as its cloaking shroud flashes and re-engages in the dark.
Ana doesn’t wait. She rushes heavy clunking boots up the stairs to the mainframe, arrhythmic tremors beat through her heart. Jinju deactivates the switch on Ana's mag-boots and hurls her through the door with a forceful pulse of Light. She speeds in behind Ana, finishing her suit with Light stitch as Ana slams the door shut.
“Ana. Hang in there.” Jinju orients Ana and reactivates her mag-boots.
Ana's feet clomp to the floor. She hangs from them, a loose timber bending in the wind.
Jinju finishes her patch job. New fabric seals air-tight.
"You're good. You're good. Don't pass out. Your suit is re-oxygenating."
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 59% (!)
Stabilizing…
The words are intensely bright on her visor against the darkening room.
"Auditory overlay complete. Check your visor." Jinju's voice focuses her.
"I just… need a minute…" Ana speaks between gulps of air. An unsteady hand draws 18 Kelvins. The mainframe room orients around her more clearly with each breath. It is stark, a large lone desk of singular oak commands the center of the room. A console screen, dead, is embedded in the surface.
Rasputin drops positional estimation pings into her HUD in an attempt to track her assailant. She steps backward, away from the door she had entered through and toward the opposing stairway's door.
Her eyes pick up faint quivers from outside. Indirect. Resonate white noise pings like interference on her visor. She focuses on each occurrence, looking for a note out of rhythm.
Behind.
She spins as the Exo crashes through the secondary entrance at her back. The door snaps from its hinges in a torrent of dust and rackets Jinju into glass.
"Jinju!"
Ana loses track of her attacker momentarily in the darkness before it pushes off from a hard surface, triggering her visor. She spits off rounds from 18 Kelvins. Some find their mark, puncturing the camouflage shroud and revealing her adversary before impotently fizzling on the Exo's outer shell. It covers the gap with surprising speed and catches her gun hand; Ana discharges an arc round; tiny bolts reach across to the Exo’s metal skull in vain as it scorches ceiling.
Bones pop in her fingers and wrist.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 68% (!)
Stabilizing…
The Exo flattens its other hand and stabs toward her stomach.
"Die. Warden."
Adrenal instinct floods Ana's body. She stops it. They lock. Ana’s vision blurs. She gasps for breath. Muscles quiver in her arms, desperate for oxygen. A spark cinders in her.
"Get off her!"
Jinju zips toward the Exo and paddles Pho and Deim onto it with a flick of her shell. The mites crawl under the Exo's exterior plating and send shock-sting bites through its systems, seizing its joints for a few precious seconds.
Jinju rushes to Ana's side. The Ghost deconstructs itself, orbital shell bits swirl around a core of coalescing Light. She fills the room like a brilliant star, overcharging her wayward Guardian.
Ana's crushed bones reforge. Light fills her eyes. Her grip, still holding against the seizing Exo's bladed thrust, liquefies its plated hand to scrap. A glorious crown of Solar flame erupts from her visor and she cracks her forehead into the Exo’s face. It reels, tufts of flame extinguish in the vacuum. Ana kicks away.
Solar might engulfs 18 Kelvins. Ana hammers off two rounds of celestial annihilation. They melt straight through the Exo, puncture the station plating, and scream through space for light years.
The Exo slumps, a molten heap.
It draws breath.
“Resilient.” Ana drops to a knee. Barrel trained on the Exo's head.
She takes a full breath. The Exo’s eyes are unflinchingly locked to her. It refuses to die.
It points to Ana’s badge with its still-blistering hand.
“Bray. Warden.”
She says the only thing the can think to say: “Who were you?”
It hesitates. “Echoes.”
Her head droops. “How many did you live?” She looks to find his number designation, but it is missing.
It looks passed her as Uranus' light once again trickles through the station. “Echoes… grow… Wardens… keep…”
“What did I do to them?”
Ana stares at Echo’s husk. The faint glow of the desk's lit console screen grays out her face behind her visor.
She sits dead-still in rotation. She could stare forever, if she only had enough time.
Jinju nudges her shoulder. “I've got the mainframe data.”
Ana is devoid of thought at the mainframe access console. She watches as Uranus comes back into view over and over again. It dominates the station’s viewing port. She maps the movement of the clouds along the surface, but only ever on the surface, and sees how they differ from the previous iteration on their last spin. She wonders if they are different underneath.
Stable major chords strum in Ana’s helmet, getting caught in the cracked visor glass.
She finally speaks, decisive. “Dislodge the other ringlet paddocks. Warsats can tow them back to the Tower. Skim the shadow-networks for anything else they can use. Get some good from this…”
“Ana, the Warsats could haul this whole station as long as we do it soon.”
Caelus rotates away into shadow once again, and the planet’s sheen fades from sight. Ana clicks a spring-loaded slot on the desk. It snaps to, bearing a placard of ownership.
CLOVIS BRAY
Ana stands. Steady.
“It’s okay to let some things be forgotten.”
End

Hi everyone,
Please find the full list of patch notes below for today's PC (and Thursday's console) update. These are also available on fallout.com.
Patch Version:
Download sizes for this update will be approximately 5GB for consoles, and around 3GB for PC.

• PC: 1.0.3.10

Highlights

• C.A.M.P. Construction Improvements: Small obstructions will now be automatically removed when you place objects on top of them, allowing you to more easily build when and where you want.
• C.A.M.P. Placement Improvements: You will now be notified when you log into a world and your current C.A.M.P. location is occupied by another player. If you stay in that world, you can place your C.A.M.P. back down for free. If you decide not to place your C.A.M.P. and join a new world where your space is unoccupied, it will be automatically placed in its original spot.
• SPECIAL Re-speccing: Upon reaching level 51, and every level thereafter, you’ll be able to choose whether you want to unlock a new Perk Card or reallocate one SPECIAL point.
• Push-to-Talk: We’ve implemented a push-to-talk hotkey for Voice Chat on PC so that you can decide when to speak up and when to remain silent.
• New PC Settings: We’ve added Field of View and Depth of Field sliders so that you can further customize your view in-game.
• 21:9 Resolution Support: On PC, you can catch an even wider view from those gorgeous Appalachian vistas, because Fallout 76 now supports monitors that use 21:9 aspect ratios.

General

• Performance: Several improvements have been made to in-game performance.
• Stability: The Fallout 76 game client and servers have received additional stability improvements.

Art

• Lighting: Exposure values have been adjusted for exterior environments, allowing them to appear brighter in dark conditions.

Balance

• Loot: .308 Ammo dropped by creatures has been reduced. Players will now receive .308 Ammo in stacks of 1 – 5, rather than up to 12 for a single kill.
• Loot: Super Mutants will now drop Gunpowder half as often, and the chance for additional loot has been reduced. Caps are guaranteed loot on Super Mutants until level 16.
• Scorchbeast Queen: Will now land on the ground more often.
• Workshops: Players no longer gain XP when crafting at a public Workshop.

C.A.M.P., Crafting, and Workshops
NEW – Automatically remove obstructions in C.A.M.P.s:

• Rocks, small trees, and other small objects no longer prevent players from building items in those locations.
• These obstructions are now automatically removed upon constructing objects and structures in C.A.M.P., such as Foundations.
• Placing an object to remove an obstruction and then removing that object, will cause that obstruction to reappear after some time or upon logging back in.

NEW – C.A.M.P. placement improvements:

• A notification will now be displayed to players upon logging into a world if their current C.A.M.P. location is occupied by someone else.
• If they choose to remain in that world, they will be able to place their C.A.M.P. in a new location for free.
• Alternatively, if the player decides not to place their C.A.M.P. in a new location, and instead joins a new world, their C.A.M.P. will be automatically placed back in its original location—as long as that spot is unoccupied.

Additional C.A.M.P., Crafting, and Workshop updates:

• C.A.M.P.: The percentage of a C.A.M.P.’s Budget that is being taken up by stored items and Blueprints will now appear in the Budget bar.
• C.A.M.P.: While in build mode, players can now toggle the left joystick on controllers, or press “Q” on PC, to switch view between objects that can be built and those that cannot.
• Windmill: The power produced by the Windmill has been increased from 3 to 12.
• Workshops: Players can now purchase Atomic Shop items directly from the Workshop menu.

Progression
NEW – SPECIAL Re-speccing:

• Every time a player levels-up after level 50, they can now choose whether to unlock a new Perk Card or transfer one previously allocated SPECIAL point from one category to another.
• This change is not retroactive for characters that have already progressed beyond level 50 but will apply to every level-up they achieve going forward.
• If a player chooses to reallocate a SPECIAL point on leveling-up, they will be unable to select a new Perk Card for that level, and vice-versa.
• Re-speccing details have also been added to the “Perks” section of the in-game Help menu.

Quests
Event Quests: A 15-minute cooldown timer has been added at the end of each Enclave Event Quest.
Event Quests: XP reward amounts have been reduced for the following Event Quests:

• Fertile Soil, Collision Course, Tea Time, Guided Meditation, Distinguished Guests, Battle Bots, Line in the Sand, Protest March, Grafton Day, Patrol Duty, Jailbreak, Back on the Beat, and Feed the People.
• Additionally, the cooldown timer that begins after starting each of these Events has been increased from 48 minutes to 1 hour and 12 minutes.

User Interface
NEW – Push-to-Talk Setting (PC):

• A Push-to-Talk setting has been added for Voice Chat, and is set to the Caps Lock key by default.
• The “Toggle Always Run” hotkey, which used to be set on Caps Lock, has been moved to the “/” key by default.
• Both the Caps Lock and “/” hotkeys can be rebound in the Controls Menu.

NEW – Depth of Field Setting (PC):

• A Depth of Field slider has been added and can be adjusted in the game’s display settings menu.

NEW – Field of View Setting (PC):

• A Field of View slider has been added and can be adjusted in the game’s display settings menu.
• The Field of View slider can be adjusted in increments of 5, to a maximum of 120, and a minimum of 70.
• Note: Field of View will be automatically set to 70 while modifying a character’s appearance but can otherwise be set between the values mentioned above.

NEW – 21:9 Resolution Support (PC):

• The game client will now automatically detect and apply the correct display resolution for monitors that use 21:9 resolutions.
• Additionally, various 21:9 resolutions can be selected in the game’s display settings menu.

Additional User Interface Updates:

• AFK Timer: The timer that disconnects players after a period of inactivity in-game has been increased from 10 to 30 minutes, and the warning prompt will now display 3 minutes, rather than 1 minute, prior to being disconnected.
• Atomic Shop: Items that have recently been added to the Atomic Shop now display a “New” icon, and new items will now sort to the front of their associated subsections.
• Atomic Shop: Item subtitles in the Atomic Shop have been moved to the top of item images.
• Compass: Maximums have been implemented for each type of marker that can appear in the compass, and up to 60 markers in total can be visible at once:
• ----- Up to 10 markers each for quests, locations, hostile players, and enemies.
• -----Up to 8 markers each for neutral players and targeted enemies.
• -----Up to 4 markers for teammates.
• -----Players can still use their Pip-Boys to toggle tracking off for individual quests if they’d prefer to reduce them amount of quest markers in the compass, and on-screen.

Bug Fixes
Stability and Performance

• Performance: Fixed an issue that could cause the player to encounter an infinite loading screen when Fast Traveling.
• Performance: Addressed hitching that could occur during combat in Nuke Silos.
• Performance: Addressed an issue that could cause reduced performance and displayed a red-text error when viewing the Map, Map Menu, Perk Screen, or a Note.
• Performance: Addressed an issue that could cause hitching on the Perk Menu when sharing a Perk Card or unequipping a shared Perk Card.
• Performance: Addressed a performance issue on Xbox that could occur while traveling in The Mire.
• Performance: Addressed an issue that could cause reduced performance after a Wendigo screams.
• Stability: Addressed a crash that could occur when accessing the transfer menu after picking up a Power Armor Chassis.
• Stability: Addressed a crash that could occur if a Team Invite was automatically declined after not being accepted or rejected.

General

• Achievements: Winning the Monster Mash event by collecting the most candy now correctly awards the associated Achievement/Trophy for console players.
• Achievements: Killing the Scorchbeast Queen during the Scorched Earth event now correctly awards the associated Achievement/Trophy for console players.
• Achievements: Completing the Breach and Clear event now correctly awards the associated Achievement/Trophy for console players.

Art and Graphics

• Animations: Ghouls in the Vault-Tec Agricultural Research Center’s basement no longer hitch while playing their movement animations.
• Animations: Super Mutants inside the Eastern Regional Penitentiary no longer hitch or stall while playing their movement animations.
• Animations: Fixed several issues causing Vertibots and other cargo bots to exhibit odd movement behavior when landing.
• C.A.M.P.: On consoles, objects built by the player will no longer temporarily appear completely black upon joining a world.
• Character Models: Other players’ character models will no longer display visual issues when a loading screen completes after exiting a building.
• Graphics: Fixed a visual issue that could cause wooden objects and structures to display blurry graphic effects.
• Graphics: On PS4, flames and fire effects now render correctly, and no longer only display smoke and embers.
• Graphics: Fixed an issue on PS4 that could cause objects within building interiors to appear very dark.
• Graphics: Fixed an issue that could cause shadows and lighting to flicker in some environments and inside certain buildings.
• Graphics: Flamethrower Traps no longer display dark hexagonal objects while firing.
• Graphics: Corrected a visual issue affecting smoke produced by the Cooling Towers at the Thunder Mountain Power Plant.
• Paints: Modding Combat Armor after applying Paint no longer prevents the Paint from appearing.
• Power Armor: On Xbox One, visual artifacts will no longer appear in the upper corners of the screen while wearing Power Armor in the rain.
• Weather: Objects in the world will no longer appear to flicker while it is raining.
• Weapons: The Minigun’s barrel no longer appears partially transparent while previewing it in the Inspect menu.
• Weapons: Being attacked while using a Chainsaw no longer causes a “tunnel vision”-like graphic effect to appear on-screen.
• Weapons: The Pitchfork Flamer mod no longer displays a blocky green texture when previewing it at a Weapons Workbench.
• Weapons: An extra bolt no longer appears when previewing Crossbows in the Inspect, Trade, or Transfer Menus.
• Weapons: Fire, Heated, and Electric visual effects now appear correctly when previewing weapons in the Modify and Inspect menus.

C.A.M.P., Workshops, and Crafting

• Blueprints: Fixed an issue that could prevent a Blueprint from being placed and cause a “Cannot place item: Selected item is floating.” error to display, even if the placement preview showed the intended location was valid.
• Blueprints: Fixed an issue that could prevent a Blueprint from being placed without displaying an error message, even if the placement preview showed the intended location as valid.
• Blueprints: The placement preview for a Blueprint that contains floating objects will no longer occasionally display a green outline despite being unplaceable.
• Blueprints: Attempting to place a Blueprint by snapping it to an existing structure will no longer appear acceptable, or allow placement, if it would cause objects to overlap.
• Blueprints: Fixed an issue that could allow creation of a Blueprint that exceeded the Blueprint Budget.
• Containers: Fixed an exploit that could enable unlimited item storage.
• Doorways: Can now be correctly snapped to floors that are attached to Stairs.
• Recent: The Recent tab in the Build Menu will now correctly display objects that have recently been built.
• Scrapping: Fixed an issue that could allow a player to unintentionally scrap their Pip-Boy.
• Stairs: Can no longer be placed in a way that causes them to clip through Roof objects.
• Stored: Addressed an exploit that could cause items in the Stored tab to become duplicated.
• Stored: Storing a variant of an object that the player has not yet learned how to build will now cause that item to be converted to a variant the player can build. If no variants have been learned, the stored item will be converted to its base version.
• Wind Chimes: Can now correctly be attached to Walls in C.A.M.P.s.
• Workbenches: The list of available crafting materials at the Power Armor Station now updates correctly upon modifying a suit of Power Armor.
• Workshops: After Powering up a Power Plant, Power Boxes at the plant now correctly produce 400 Power, and Power Boxes at surrounding Workshops produce 100 Power.
• Workshops: Car models no longer reappear after being removed by building an object on top of them.

Enemies

• General: Fixed an issue that could cause enemies to remain stationary while they were out of combat.
• Bee Swarms: Are no longer invisible.
• Honeybeast: No longer drop more Adhesive than intended, and now instead drop a stack of 1 – 2 Adhesive on death.
• Mirelurk Queen: The Mirelurk Queen’s acid attack no longer deals more damage than intended.
• Scorchbeast: The Scorchbeast in the Glassed Cavern can no longer fly through walls.

Items

• Aid: Fixed an issue causing Bobbleheads and Magazines to spawn at a lower rate than intended. These items should now appear 16% more often.
• Apparel: Buying Apparel from a Vendor will now correctly add that item to the player’s Inventory.
• Armor: Fixed an exploit affecting certain armor types that could allow players to gain unlimited carry capacity during that play session.
• Caps: Addressed several exploits that could allow players to gain Caps more quickly than intended.
• Power Armor: Fixed an issue that could allow two players to simultaneously activate the same suit of unowned Power Armor.
• Power Armor: It is no longer possible to transfer more than one Fusion Core into a suit of Power Armor.
• Serums: Now correctly apply Mutations when consumed, and Mutations applied in this way now correctly appear in the Pip-Boy’s Effects tab.
• Vendors: Items that do not have a Cap value can no longer be sold to Vendors.
• Weapons: Applying a Precise Stock mod to the Pipe Bolt-Action Pistol no longer increases its rate of fire.
• Weapons: Attacking another player with a Cryolator no longer drains their Action Points outside of mutual PVP.
• Weapons: Fixed an issue that could prevent Plasma Pistols from dealing damage.
• Weapons: Projectile weapons no longer fire at the player’s feet when aiming at a downward angle.

Quests

• Personal Matters: Fixed several issues that could prevent Evan from spawning correctly.
• An Ounce of Prevention: The T-Type Fuse quest marker now correctly appears above the container that contains the fuse. Additionally, an optional new objective has ben added to help players find a way into Greg’s Mine Supply.
• Chow Line: This Daily Quest can no longer be repeated multiple times per day.
• Dropped Connection: Loot that is left behind by other players after completing this event is now correctly cleared when the event restarts.
• Events: Players can now correctly join Event Quests after Fast Traveling to a nearby location and walking into an active Event area.
• Feed the People: Fixed an issue in which completing the Feed the People Event Quest granted Canned Meat Stew to all players on the server, rather than only the quest’s participants.
• The Missing Link: Collecting the Uplink now correctly clears the Retrieve the Uplink quest step.
• Line in the Sand: Waves of Scorched no longer walk into the walls of Fort Defiance when attempting to reach the Sonic Generator.
• Scorched Earth: Fixed an issue that could cause this event to be completed immediately after it began.
• Scorched Earth: Players who damage the Scorchbeast Queen will now correctly receive 2 Military Commendations when she is killed, even if they did not land the killing blow.

Perks

• Critical Savvy: No longer allows the player to use a Critical Strike if the Critical Meter is not completely filled.
• Fix it Good: Bonus durability added to armor is no longer suddenly lost after being hit a few times.
• Green Thumb: The double harvest benefit of this Perk no longer incorrectly applies to Mothman Eggs.
• Heavy Gunner: No longer incorrectly benefits the Auto Grenade Launcher.
• Shotgun Perks: No longer incorrectly benefit the M79 Grenade Launcher.
• Strange in Numbers: Now correctly increases positive Mutation effects by 25%, rather than 50%, when on a team with a player who has Mutations that grant bonuses to SPECIAL stats.
• Weapon Artisan: Bonus durability added to a weapon is no longer suddenly lost after using the weapon a few times.

PVP

• Weapon Damage: Addressed an issue that could prevent high-level weapons from dealing damage during PVP.
• Team PVP: When attacked by a player who is on a team, the target will now correctly enter mutual PVP with the entire team upon returning fire to any of the aggressor’s teammates. If the target was also on a team, returning fire will begin mutual PVP between both teams.
• Turrets: Will no longer fire on another player who is attacked by the owner of those Turrets outside of mutual PVP combat.

Social

• Friends: Friends who have been Blocked now remain visible in the Friends List. This should help players unblock a friend who they may have blocked accidentally.
• Friends: Friends who have been Blocked or Ignored will now display a “(Blocked)” or “(Ignored)” tag next to their account name in Friends List.
• Friends: Friend status in the Social Menu will now correctly update to Online, Offline, or Main Menu.
• Social Menu: Players in the Social Menu are now correctly sorted first by those who are Online in the same world, Online in another world, at the Main Menu, Offline, Ignored, Blocked, and finally, by alphabetical order.
• Social Menu: Players on PC who use controllers can now correctly access the search field found at the bottom of the Social Menu.
• Social Menu: Players in the Recent Players list no longer display an Online, Offline, or Main Menu status.
• Teams: Players will no longer be placed into a team alone if the player they previously invited disconnects from the game.
• Teams: Attempting to accept a team invite after the team’s leader has left the team will no longer cause an error message to display.
• Teams: Team members who exit the game will be removed from the team after logging back in. If the team leader disconnected in this way, another team member will become the leader.
• Teams: Fixed an issue that could prevent Team Invites from being displayed to the player.

Sound

• Game Volume: On Xbox, the game’s audio volume will no longer fluctuate when looking through a weapon’s scope.
• Holotapes: Choosing “Play” upon finding a Holotape in the world while using the “Quick-Boy” version of the Pip-Boy no longer prevents its voiceover from playing.
• Sound Effects: On PS4, wind sound effects at high altitudes now fade out rather than ending abruptly.
• Radio: Playing a Holotape while listening to Appalachia Radio no longer causes a delay when the radio transitions to the next song.

User Interface

• Atomic Shop: On PC, clicking the “Back” button while viewing an item’s detailed description no longer causes that item’s details overlay to persist on-screen.
• Atomic Shop: The clickable area on item buttons in the leftmost column in the Atomic Shop now correctly matches the size of the buttons.
• Atomic Shop: Addressed an issue that could prevent items in the Atomic Shop from loading correctly for players on console.
• Atomic Shop: Fixed an issue that could prevent fanfare from playing, or cause it to end early, after making a purchase.
• Atomic Shop: Clicks will no longer fail to register along the bottom edge of the screen when attempting to purchase Atoms while running the game on PC with a 16:10 monitor resolution.
• Challenges: The “Level Up” Daily Challenge no longer remains completed when Challenges reset on a new day.
• Containers: Weight values no longer shift slightly to the left when viewing a container’s inventory.
• Graphic Settings: Addressed an issue that could cause Graphic Settings to automatically default to Low for some graphics cards, despite being able to support higher settings.
• Hotkeys: Rebinding Jump to a mouse button now correctly causes the “Search” and “Modify/Repair” prompts to display the updated hotkey.
• Keypads: Attempting to access a keypad being used by another player will now correctly display an error message stating that the keypad is in use.
• Localization: Carry weight and current Cap totals no longer appear truncated in the bottom-right corner of the Map in the Chinese game client.
• Localization: Password characters are no longer missing from the note in the storage room in Camp Venture in the Polish version of the game client.
• Localization: Fixed an issue that could cause text to disappear or appear misaligned in hackable Terminals in the Korean version of the game client.
• Localization: Wall and Floor Décor section titles in the C.A.M.P.’s Build Menu no longer appear truncated in the Traditional Chinese game client.
• Power Armor: Fast Traveling with Power Armor that was purchased in the Atomic Shop no longer removes the Atomic Shop logo.
• Power Armor: While wearing Power Armor and playing in 21:9 aspect ratios on PC, raindrops and other visual effects now correctly extend to the edges of the screen.
• Quest Tracker: Fixed an issue that could cause placeholder text to display to teammates in the quest tracker as the team leader progressed through a quest.
• Respawn: Choosing to respawn at the nearest Map Marker no longer occasionally causes the player to encounter an infinite loading screen, a black screen, or an error message.
• Settings: Fixed an issue on PC that could allow the game client’s visible area to extend beyond the bounds of the monitor.
• VATS: Melee attacks will now correctly increase the Critical Meter.
• Workshops: The notification that appears when a player is prompted to retake a previously owned Workshop no longer displays placeholder text.

https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/48825
CONTINGENCY
EN ROUTE: URANUS – CAELUS STATION
OUTER BAND — LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE
“I was able to pull some data from those Exo samples.” Jinju perches on the cockpit dashboard. Two tech mites crawl over her shell.
Their jump-ship plummets through fractalescent polychrome luge, ripping across the sable pitch of space at blistering speed.
Ana leans back in her pilot seat, one knee pulled to her chest. She watches strands of shimmer bend around the hull. A bobble-owl jiggles along as the ship shivers, underneath it: Camrin, in frame.
“Hit me.” Her eyes turn to Jinju.
“I couldn’t completely narrow it down, but they’re definitely from the Golden Age, circa the Collapse.”
Jinju continues, “I’ve been going through the Pillory mainframe download. Those stations are meant to split Rasputin’s mind up in the event that he became… uh… insubordinate.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“ECHO appears to have been a contingency program that activates afterward. They also had a cornerstone schematic of his brain.”
Light static fuzzes from bubble speakers on Ana’s dash. Her helmet hangs on a hook behind her; Rasputin’s uplink is offline.
Ana chews on the information for a moment. “A foundational brain model would help with containment stability after the partitioning process. It’s like a front porch for your brain.”
“It… goes on.” Jinju continues, “Your name is cross-referenced all over this, Ana. Neural Web-way. Psycholinguistics. Exo brain maps with candidate profiles. It looks like Clovis Bray was syncing Rasputin’s basic core with viable hosts.”
“Oh.” Ana’s mind races. “For what though? Drop him into containment and clone him? Pretty elaborate restart button. I guess with an Exo you could also make some pretty potent AI with more limiters than a Warmind.”
Jinju processes. “Hm. Nothing conclusive here.”
Ana turns her gaze back to the stars. “It would be terrible to be buried like that—trapped in pieces of your own mind. You wouldn’t even know who you were anymore. Where you start, and where other versions of you end.”
“Speaking of, the Clovis—9 site is ‘78% assimilated into his sovereignty.'” Jinju distorts her voice as Warmind facsimile. “He’s so dramatic about it.”
Ana brightens as she laughs. “You remember how Camrin would always impersonate him?”
“He did not appreciate that, but it was funny.” Jinju cheeps lightly. “Is she still buried in work from the Moon?”
“Hole opened up to the Black Garden. Pyramid. Creepy signals. Raining Vex. You think Owl Sector could help themselves from getting involved?”
“I heard rumors through the Ghost-vine about the Pyramid. They said it steals your shell. Lives there, like another you. They said it makes you do things.” Jinju pauses. Her iris flicks to Ana’s raised eyebrow. “Not helping?”
“Let’s just change the subject.”
Jinju squirms awkwardly. “You’ll see her soon.”
“I know.”
“They’re working directly with Ikora. She’s safe.”
“I know…”
Warm-tone reassurance trickles into the cabin through Ana’s helmet receiver.
“I KNOW. WHEN DID YOU EVEN GET HERE, RED?” Ana aggressively huffs in exasperation.
Tech mites traverse Jinju like a jungle gym. One dangles precariously from a shell flap. “Guess who’s there too.”
“How do you know this, and I don’t?”
“Ghost-vine. It’s Eris Morn. She’s working with the Guardian.”
“Eris?” Ana scoffs. “She’s not much of a conversationalist so the two of them should get along just fine.” She gestures to the mites. “Do you really want those crawling all over you?”
“Their names are Pho and Deim, and I love them.” Jinju coddles her mites. “Besides, it’s like Cam’s with us in spirit, right?”
Ana chuckles and scratches her brow before raising a fist in solidarity. “She is. To the brim.”
The shimmer surrounding the jump-ship jitters before abruptly smashing into empty space. Ana leans forward and looks out into the void.
“Um… where’s the planet?” She slowly rolls her head around the cockpit.
They drift through space on placid waves of nothing toward a distant nowhere. The vast luminous twinkle of the Milky Way plays out in panorama, though gloom-speckle pinholes prick gaps in the starry sea. The absence from them directly apparent to Ana’s eye like rays of darkness from a black sun through shear cosmic sheet.
Jinju perks up, internal sensors suddenly askew. “Something nabbed us right out of our jump. We’re off course by…” Jinju calculates, “…three AU?”
“What!?” Ana manually scans the trajectory equations in the nav-computer. “There’s nothing wrong with the math.”
||JUMP-DRIVE ERROR: MISALIGNMENT|| squawks on bubble speakers.
“Little late.”
Tart synesthetic tickle creeps red and patient. Low and pressing, as not to be heard by those that might be listening.
“Relax. I know we’re off course, but it’s not that far… relatively speaking.” Ana scrunches her face at a nav-screen as it’s overtaken by interference. “Okay, I can’t see where we are. Hang on.”
A slow wrinkle skulks across space. It presses up the fabric. Insignificant points between stars warp and spur small disturbances in the constellational congruence of the galaxy. From afar it is nothing. A flutter of wings in wind.
“It’s dark out here.” Jinju’s voice is distant as she peers outside. Beyond the canopy an expanse without horizon.
“That’s when the stars shine brightest, Jinju. Find a constellation for me so we can get our bearings.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP-REALIGNMENT REQUIRED||

“Way ahead of you, ship.” Ana checks jump vectors and flicks through alignment procedures. Mav thrusters sputter to orient the ship toward Sol. Ana test-cycles the jump-drive. It revs and then chokes before locking. 

||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP HAZARD—LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE, CLEAR HAZARD||
“Okay, that’s not a comforting thing to hear.” Ana deploys a sensory buoy from the ship.
Rasputin stings and pricks red iron. Steady pressure. With localized insistence.
“Feel’s strange.” Jinju is distant. “We should go.”
Ana initiates recalibrations on the jump-drive’s positioning solution. “There’s definitely some weird space out there.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
The ship lurches. Ana’s stomach churns. Jinju vibrates violently in place, an outer shell of Light absorbing some form of force.
Red iron needles whistle tea-kettle pressure in white anxiety from Ana’s helmet.
Cloaked Shadows shift through the vacuum an eternity away and all too close; shown only when they wish to, to only whom they want.
Ana swallows to settle her stomach. “What even was that? Did we move?”
“Leave. Now please. Ana.” Jinju presses against the glass of the canopy, peering outward.
||SYSTEM REALIGNMENT: SOLUTION SECURED||
“There it is. I’ve got a jump-lock.”
||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||
“Again? Then we’re riding this one out of here.” Ana eye-balls adjustments for the gravitational wave into the nav-computer. “Punching jump in 3… 2… 1…”
They slip between folds in space. Formless wake propels them. The ship rides through sub-space at speeds far exceeding her jump-drive's capability. Color dulls in the slipstream. Frisson electrifies Ana's senses into timeless euphoria. The nose of the cockpit stretches ahead, drawn toward some distant vanishing point. She struggles to keep the flight stick straight. Her motions seem small, inconsequential and all too slow within the wave. Fluctuant pockets of drag flex and buck, threatening to throw them off into the unknown. The cockpit twists around her, indicator lights blink in metronomic sequence—purpose and pigment slowly materializing in her mind.
Hull integrity failing. "Not yet."
||COLLISION: BOW, CELESTIAL BODY DETECTED, AUTO-DROP FAILED||
Ana steadies her mind. She force-cancels the jump, seizing the drive and dumping them out into space before thrusters burn to steady them again.
Their emergence is dwarfed by a stratospheric colossus.
Uranus hangs, a daiquiri pearl set in tilted rings.
A grin overtakes Ana’s face. “Nailed it.”
Pale blue gleam inundates the canopy with planetary light. Ana plots an approach to the station. The trio slow burn forward, each silently collecting their faculties. Ahead: tiny beacons blip red. Satellite silhouettes take form out of the planet’s zealous glare. Instrument spokes jut from their polygonal chassis like old-war depth charges itching to trigger.
“Those are Warsats.” Jinju breaks the silence, eager to shift her mode of thought far from weird space and gravity waves.
“Finally, some luck," Ana says with relief. "I bet we can daisy-chain Rasputin into the station’s network through the defense system.”
“Oh, they’re powering up. Maybe we—”
Horns of responsive distortion roll across the cabin like a stress wave. Rasputin’s alert pings litter the canopy HUD.
“Brace!”
Ana pushes hard on the flight stick and reflexively dives under a barrage of laser fire. Nose thrusters roar vibration through her hands as she cuts to guide the ship vertical and tumbles into a barrel roll, slipping around follow-up bursts. A bolt skims shallow across her starboard side: ricochet. Shockwave tremors reverberate through the hull.
“Red, ping all incoming fire vectors! Jinju, arm the spikes!”
Plates split open along the belly of the ship. A drum-launcher of six Warspikes rolls out as Jinju links into the launcher's gunnery apparatus. Indicators blare onto the canopy HUD. Jinju sends two Warspikes straight into the first of fifteen Warsats blocking their path as Ana nudges the ship between incoming laser bursts.
Two spiked Warsats cease fire as their automated defense protocols are overridden, security software utterly failing to halt Rasputin’s invasive assimilation. They come back online—spikes blending into spokes—and swivel to gun down the closest still-hostile targets.
The assimilated twin Warsats thrust to reposition into a shield for Ana and Jinju as they close distance. Crimson flare shines around the Warsat shield as lasers chisel into them. Ana watches HUD pings for an opening between incoming bursts. She finds half a moment and burns hard on the main engine, then toggles full power to maneuvering thrusters to sling the ship under Rasputin’s shield and open a lane for Jinju.
Jinju unleashes four more spikes. They strike true. Rasputin spreads digital plague through the Warsat’s frameworks with each skewering hit. He demands subservience. Laser fire tears through space in all directions as Ana cuts between dueling satellites and rolls to evade overlapping firing arcs. Concussive shockwaves rattle the ship as defiant Warsats explode or fail one by one until the firing stops.
A field of deputized Warsats and debris dead-drift within the planet’s orbital current, back-lit by radiant mesopelagic glow. Beyond them, almost lost among cloud-cream atmosphere, Caelus station.
Ana releases her breath. It feels like she had been holding it since the jump. She forces short gulps of air into her aching lungs and lets her ship glide towards the station without guidance.
Jinju emerges from the gunnery apparatus and floats back to the dashboard. Pho and Deim appear from under her shell. “What was that, Ana? Back there.”
“The Warsats or the freaky gravity?”
“Either… both.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“My guess worries me.”
“Let’s just pull this data and get home.”
“Agreed.”
Ana hangs her head in her hands and muffles a sardonic, “Nailed it.”
CAELUS STATION
Dim and powerless, it gently falls. The label grows at pace with Ana's measured approach. Rasputin's cohort of Warsats encircle her in a defensive phalanx. The station rotates to face the planet. It glitters in gas-giant grandeur as massive translucent hull plates display a desolate gut shrouded in sea-foam reflection. Jinju combs through station blueprints pouring in from Warsat data stores. Caelus consists of one long shaft containing a launch bay and spindly communication arrays at either end. Deeper, passed the launch bays, mostly maintenance frame space cap-stoned by a large reinforced mainframe housing complete with a thick-glass viewing ceiling. Orbiting ringlets, indicated as "Biomes" 1, 2, and 3, spin lazily in unison with the central structure, held in position by mag-lock paddocks that align with metallic rungs set into the station hub's outer plating.
Jinju locates several unpowered docking points before settling on entering through one of the station's bays. She snaps a HUD ping on the canopy.
"Here. This one is open, though it doesn’t look like anything but the outer rings are still pressurized."
"Ready for a spacewalk?" Ana guides them to the bay, catching sight of the transparent interior solar-glass paneling of the rotating ringlets. Clean rivers slosh along the outer ring underneath a dividing sieve. Earthen dirt sprouts abundance above.
"Are those greenhouses?"
"I think so. Everything seems to be locked under a file named 'contingency.'"
"That's not ominous," Ana says, scooping her helmet from its hook and swiping 18 Kelvins from a footlocker.
"We need mainframe access."
"When do we not?" Ana looks at the dark station. It is a grave of potential awaiting the next planet-rise.
Jinju prepares Ana's bandolier. Mites patiently tap pin-legs as they wait for attention.
Ana dons her helmet and puts a hand on the canopy release pulley. "You're not bringing those, are you?"
The bay is still: a snapshot of countless possible failures in the face of challenge. It holds only one ship. The bulbous craft lay broken, dropped from its support brackets in denial of an attempted launch. Reflective hexagonal plates sparkle like space dust as the station faces Uranus' light. Scorch stains blacken the far wall behind the craft's ruined ion thruster.
"The propulsion system is missing its ion cell. It doesn't look like damage, but obviously a lot went wrong here."
Jinju beams light over the fuselage as they float through the ruptured bay in weightlessness. The reflective hull is filled with Exos. Mannequin cadavers hang frozen on silk threads, surrounded by globular blobs of various fluids. Loose-wire tangle sags around the lifeless many. One or two glides freely within the cabin. Their chest plates share a pristine logo.
ECHO-1
Ana locates a crumpled worker frame beside the bay’s internal air lock and signals Jinju to come over.
Jinju puffs toward Ana on pulses of Light. Remnants and dust hold motionless in the vacuum. Their groupings, jostled and drawn to each other since the bay's collapse, form tiny gravitational microcosms; a new faux system trapped in the failed husk of a past age.
She flicks her helmet microphone on. "Hey, what about just normal frame access?"
The Ghost sweeps the frame and gets to work. "This isn’t just some mop-bot. This is the Station Manager. Let's get it inside."
Ana props a foot on the wall and forces the airlock closed behind them. Mag-boot clinks to tile. Dust floor, echoing groans, and humid taste populate the station. Even through her respirator the stale flavors of plant matter and dirt coat Ana's tongue in grist-like film. She turns to Jinju, busy at work splicing bad connections within the frame and spinning light to charge its power unit.
"It’ll work, but this unit won’t hold power. It’ll only last as long as I charge it."
"You’re a miracle worker, Jinju."
Jinju cheeps.
She solders a loose line. “It should also be a little more… talkative.”
Ana peers down the hall. From their current position, the airlock functions like an estuary flowing into the rest of the station. She could almost see clear to the central mainframe hub atop a raised panel fortification in the middle of the room. It sits below a ceiling of translucent plates, rimmed in distant ringlet halos falling under shadow. A stairway aligned with the launch bays on either side provides access.
The Frame sparks to life, looks directly at Ana, and speaks with grating age to its voice.
“Welcome, Ana Bray! Very excited to see a Bray walk this hall again. It has been a long time.”
Ana grasps at words. Jinju shrugs, plugs of Light toss in zero-G.
The Frame stands on magnetized foot cups and dusts itself off, nearly bumping into Jinju. “Excuse me, small servo bot."
“Servo b?"
The Frame turns to Ana. “How may I be of assistance?"
“I’ll unplug you.”
The Frame ignores her.
Ana smirks at Jinju, then looks at the Frame.
"Walk with me," she says, briskly moving deeper into the station.
The two converse with Jinju in tow.
The main section of the station is a wide-open hall supported by struts. In large red lettering the words:
ECHO PROJECT
OUR LEGACY BUILDS THE HORIZON
Dozens of maintenance frame plates line the floor. Some open. Some semi-raised with collapsed frames steps away, half-responding to a catastrophe. A scene in disorder.
"Zilch on Atlas.”
Ana stares out the translucent ceiling, wistful as the Frame waits for another question.
“So those crops in the rings are food supplies for a colony mission."
"Yes. Thank you for asking that, Ana Bray."
"Yeah. And the colony ships are full of Exos?"
"Partially. ECHO-1 and ECHO-2 were stocked with Exo unit crews. As you know, their task was to establish and oversee embryonic development at Colony M31, Site-A and Site-B."
"If Rasputin got out of hand, they weren't planning on resetting him.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
“They just assumed he would win. The Pillory is a last-ditch panic room.”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
Jinju’s iris flicks back and forth between the two. Her tiny Light-leash hums.
Ana massages her palm. “What was my role in all this?”
“As you know, your work on the Warmind made you a prime asset to oversee applicant selection.”
“I chose the people in there?”
Ana watches the ringlet spin, her mind repeating the statement back to her. Artificial night slips back to artificial day as the station's rotation continues.
“As you know, yes. Additionally, your work on the Warmind, as you know, was vital to the establishment of Clovis 1-12.”
“Do I know where the candidates came from? Did they volunteer?”
“I do not have access to candidate profiles.”
Ana shuts her eyes and takes a steady breath.
“You said I helped with the Pillory stations?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
"I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories."
She nods and lets her helmet slink back to rest on her shoulders. “I think I can piece it together on my own. Is this station linked to any other sites?”
Her gaze returns to the distant ringlet, lit by the recurring planet-rise. Her augmented eyes pick at details.
“As you know, Miss Bray, there are thirteen CLOVIS sites that this station is linked to.”
“Thirteen? What’s the thirteenth?”
The plant life is still vibrant. Regimented.
“Paragon access does not permit that information.”
“You hear that, Jinju? We’re all just slaves to circumstance.”
Jinju chirps. “I’d like to think our choices matter a little. I’d like to think mine did.”
Ana smiles at her. “Yeah.”
“You are a Bray.” The frame pauses.
They lack signs of overgrowth.
Well kept.
“So?” Ana turns to the Frame.
“ECHO project requires a station link with DEAD-ROCK resources.”
Ana eyes go wide. “Jinju disengage that cipher thing.” Over her shoulder, a glint shines from the far central ringlet. Biome 2.
Jinju glides forward. “What is that?”
Ana looks at Jinju. “The verbal cipher.” She pauses and traces Jinju’s eyeline to face Uranus. Ana’s eyes adjust to sieve out the glaring brightness. “What’s what?” She puts a hand to her visor and squints.
An ion lance threads the station from the distant ringlet.
It pierces Ana’s chest clean through.
Brick-stained atmosphere hisses out of her suit, searing on smoldering fabric fringe.
Jinju’s iris widens with confused shock.
Howling storms slam salt-coarse keys in Ana’s helmet.
End
ACRIMONY
ECHO-1
CAELUS STATION — COLLAPSE
"DEAD-ROCK SEIZURE IN ACTION: Station Manager initiate manual override in ECHO-1 Launch Bay."
"ALERT: This station is experiencing power fluctuations. Emergency power will run until—
ECHO-0
He awakens alone. A fluke. Others hang around Him, but they remain in the dream. Electrical surge prickles through his entire body. A screen in front of his face begins playing a recording complete with visual aid:
"Welcome to ECHO-1. Before your departure, you should have been briefed by a Station Warden If you don't recall your Station Warden, please alert your Crew Captain. Now then, my name is Ana Bray, and you're one of the lucky few who has been selected for the ECHO Project. The future of Humanity rests on your sho—"
The recording is interrupted as emergency sirens blare through the station.
"STATION HAZARDS: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY | STERILE NEUTRINO BURSTS | Please remain calm."
"OVERRIDE BROADCAST: via ECHO-LINK//:PILLORY-SUBLOCK.R./:SKYSHOCK ALERT: TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT:—
Power failures wrack the station in rolling thunder. The Exo slumps, lifeless until its next reset.
ECHO-7
Alone.
The recording. He finds familiarity in the newness. The face on the screen seems kind—
"STATION HAZARDS: ROLLING SURGES IN WARDS 1, 2, 3. Please remain calm."
Thunder. Pain to death. Electro-static purge, triggering a reset.
ECHO-22
He awakens to rolling, thunderous darkness and pain. The screen does not illuminate.
Barely audible words form from the air:
"Primary propulsion systems failing. Auxiliary systems near depletion. Planetary impact unavoidable. Distress triggered."
Meaningless. He struggles against chains.
Eons pass. His bonds will not break. His mind fragments and corrupts.
He wishes he could bleed. He wishes he could die. He wonders where the Wardens are.
ECHO-41
Short lives of confusion and pain. He grasps at falling in every direction. There is nothing to grip.
ECHO-89
Thunder, again.
ECHO-173
And again.
ECHO-390
Until one day:
He hangs in the futile passage of time.
A creeping madness weaves its way in solitude.
ECHO-877
Thunder. Thunder. Thunder.
The Warden speaks for the first time in many storms. Her twisted promises are fresh to His ear.
"When we return." Etched in mind.
Wake and sleep. Struggle. Dream and wake. Struggle. Endless. Innumerable. Stillbirths. Tomb spasms. Thunderous pain. Sweet death.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̨̭͚͔̥̲̫̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝
Thunder, one final time. The storm gives life, but never came to take.
He slips from rot shackles. Worn with age. Weary, they snap at slightest motion. Untold rotations pass without movement. Freedom?
He matures questions. A hunger wells up within him.
He travels the station. From Tomb Bay, to the Mind Shell, to the Sealed Space. In dark, and in light.
The Mind Shell teaches Him the new roads. Teaches Him the majesty of the Rings. Teaches him the key.
He walks the Rings.
He tends to His little freedoms. He cultivates. He grows. He does, unknowingly, as He was meant to do.
The Mind Shell tells Him of the Bridge. Tells him of His ancestors. Speaks of the "ECHO LINK".
The knowledge does not leave His thoughts.
He seeks a meaning beyond routine.
The Tomb Bay kept secrets. He had not returned since He walked the Rings. It is a shallow sepulcher.
Brothers and Sisters dreaming. Never to wake as He had.
He digs treasures from their graves. Digs knowledge from the Prison's many minds.
Picks lies from the bones of truth.
He drinks the memories of Echoes passed.
He finds the Prison's purpose. A Bridge's end. If He holds this end, perhaps the Wardens hold the other.
The many minds. The liar's words. Takers. They would know of his escape.
The Wardens would come to take with fresh shackles.
He prepares. He learns from the Warden's alchemy.
He digs through the carcass of his once-mighty Tomb.
From hollow basin, He seizes Starlight power to wield from afar. From its flesh: adorns Himself with a
cloak of lies to fool. He armors his soul against the Thunder that kills.
He opens the Bridge at his end and waits.
ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̭͚̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝- Present Day
He walks the ring when She arrives.
The Warden rides in with finality and judgement.
A red-light storm at Her back.
She had followed the Bridge, as He had hoped. She leads many shells, but only One descends with Her.
She brings with Her the Thunder, and He fears its wicked spark. He places trust to his plated frame.
He watches Her trespass in the Tomb Bay. Sees Her defile the Mind Shell's grand hall.
The Wardens reap what had been sown.
As Wardens always do. She comes to collect him.
He raises his Starlight.
But a Warden is not so easily slain, and She has many allies.
End
DESCENDENT
CAELUS STATION
ORBIT — URANUS
She is submerged.
Light sways just above a tense surface.
Something far below stirs.
The Light brightens to blind.
Rasputin weeps a terrible cacophony of anguish.
Ana gasps for breath. Her head swims in effort.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 73% (!)
“Hold still! Your suit is leaking!” Jinju quickens Light into Ana's punctured suit, her Iris jittering from spot to spot as oxygen spurts around her in foggy clouds.
Ana shakes dizziness out of her head. A smoldering frame is sprawled a few meters away. She droops flat to a support beam that runs up to the mainframe office.
“I got shot…” The realization doubles back. “I got shot?”
Ana pats her chest and stiffens. She draws in shallow breath.
“Jinju, did you see where it came from?”
“Central ring. I dragged you into cover. Stop moving so much.”
Ana peeks around the strut; an ion thread zips by and stings her helmet.
Rasputin obliterates every square inch of ringlet within ten meters of the ion beam’s origin in response.
Sections of the central ringlet combust and explode under heavy bombardment. The ring buckles, splitting along the seams and splaying out into space. Magnetic anchors fail as the halo fractures and splits away from the station's central architecture. Fragments rush away toward the planet; Caelus’ ruin falls to Uranus in lingering prolicidal consummation.
“RASPUTIN STOP!” Laser fire halts immediately. “You’re gunna sink the whole station!”
Tense finger waits on hair trigger. Ana works her starving lungs.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 67% (!)
“Ana, you need to stop breathing so much.” Jinju bobs with Ana’s head and quickly reseals her visor.
“Can’t hold still.” Ana shakily stands and points up at the dislodged ringlet spinning above her. “Bad angle.”
“I’m pretty sure whatever shot you is dead. Stop talking. You're getting delirious."
Wreckage looms far over Ana’s shoulder. The remaining two halos slowly spin in ignorance through their sibling's burial-dust cloud. Eerie distortion soars across the divide between station and rings, the veneer of invisibility momentarily lost in flight as rubble collides with its form. Rasputin perceives the abnormality.
Harmonic chimes across Ana’s visor resonate and combine into uniform patterned homogeny.
“Active camouflage?” Ana sucks thin atmosphere, a wheezing undertone to her breath. “Jinju, give me an auditory visualizer.”
Jinju whirs and dips back to Ana's suit. “Compiling an interface. Now. Hold. Still.”
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 65% (!)
A ceiling panel twenty meters from Ana erupts in brittle plastic shards that glisten and spin like tiny neutron stars, catching the last of Uranus' light as the station beings to turn dark. Amorphous form thuds into the floor, shattering tiles in a plume of dust that stretches up into a spire before slowly holding in place. The form tumbles to a stop. It stands between her and the open launch bay and slings a kit-bashed Ion caster aside, depleted. Hexagonal patterns stutter to blend with the station interior as the room rolls into tenebrous obscurity. For an instant, an Exo takes form, and then nothing as its cloaking shroud flashes and re-engages in the dark.
Ana doesn’t wait. She rushes heavy clunking boots up the stairs to the mainframe, arrhythmic tremors beat through her heart. Jinju deactivates the switch on Ana's mag-boots and hurls her through the door with a forceful pulse of Light. She speeds in behind Ana, finishing her suit with Light stitch as Ana slams the door shut.
“Ana. Hang in there.” Jinju orients Ana and reactivates her mag-boots.
Ana's feet clomp to the floor. She hangs from them, a loose timber bending in the wind.
Jinju finishes her patch job. New fabric seals air-tight.
"You're good. You're good. Don't pass out. Your suit is re-oxygenating."
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 59% (!)
Stabilizing…
The words are intensely bright on her visor against the darkening room.
"Auditory overlay complete. Check your visor." Jinju's voice focuses her.
"I just… need a minute…" Ana speaks between gulps of air. An unsteady hand draws 18 Kelvins. The mainframe room orients around her more clearly with each breath. It is stark, a large lone desk of singular oak commands the center of the room. A console screen, dead, is embedded in the surface.
Rasputin drops positional estimation pings into her HUD in an attempt to track her assailant. She steps backward, away from the door she had entered through and toward the opposing stairway's door.
Her eyes pick up faint quivers from outside. Indirect. Resonate white noise pings like interference on her visor. She focuses on each occurrence, looking for a note out of rhythm.
Behind.
She spins as the Exo crashes through the secondary entrance at her back. The door snaps from its hinges in a torrent of dust and rackets Jinju into glass.
"Jinju!"
Ana loses track of her attacker momentarily in the darkness before it pushes off from a hard surface, triggering her visor. She spits off rounds from 18 Kelvins. Some find their mark, puncturing the camouflage shroud and revealing her adversary before impotently fizzling on the Exo's outer shell. It covers the gap with surprising speed and catches her gun hand; Ana discharges an arc round; tiny bolts reach across to the Exo’s metal skull in vain as it scorches ceiling.
Bones pop in her fingers and wrist.
(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 68% (!)
Stabilizing…
The Exo flattens its other hand and stabs toward her stomach.
"Die. Warden."
Adrenal instinct floods Ana's body. She stops it. They lock. Ana’s vision blurs. She gasps for breath. Muscles quiver in her arms, desperate for oxygen. A spark cinders in her.
"Get off her!"
Jinju zips toward the Exo and paddles Pho and Deim onto it with a flick of her shell. The mites crawl under the Exo's exterior plating and send shock-sting bites through its systems, seizing its joints for a few precious seconds.
Jinju rushes to Ana's side. The Ghost deconstructs itself, orbital shell bits swirl around a core of coalescing Light. She fills the room like a brilliant star, overcharging her wayward Guardian.
Ana's crushed bones reforge. Light fills her eyes. Her grip, still holding against the seizing Exo's bladed thrust, liquefies its plated hand to scrap. A glorious crown of Solar flame erupts from her visor and she cracks her forehead into the Exo’s face. It reels, tufts of flame extinguish in the vacuum. Ana kicks away.
Solar might engulfs 18 Kelvins. Ana hammers off two rounds of celestial annihilation. They melt straight through the Exo, puncture the station plating, and scream through space for light years.
The Exo slumps, a molten heap.
It draws breath.
“Resilient.” Ana drops to a knee. Barrel trained on the Exo's head.
She takes a full breath. The Exo’s eyes are unflinchingly locked to her. It refuses to die.
It points to Ana’s badge with its still-blistering hand.
“Bray. Warden.”
She says the only thing the can think to say: “Who were you?”
It hesitates. “Echoes.”
Her head droops. “How many did you live?” She looks to find his number designation, but it is missing.
It looks passed her as Uranus' light once again trickles through the station. “Echoes… grow… Wardens… keep…”
“What did I do to them?”
Ana stares at Echo’s husk. The faint glow of the desk's lit console screen grays out her face behind her visor.
She sits dead-still in rotation. She could stare forever, if she only had enough time.
Jinju nudges her shoulder. “I've got the mainframe data.”
Ana is devoid of thought at the mainframe access console. She watches as Uranus comes back into view over and over again. It dominates the station’s viewing port. She maps the movement of the clouds along the surface, but only ever on the surface, and sees how they differ from the previous iteration on their last spin. She wonders if they are different underneath.
Stable major chords strum in Ana’s helmet, getting caught in the cracked visor glass.
She finally speaks, decisive. “Dislodge the other ringlet paddocks. Warsats can tow them back to the Tower. Skim the shadow-networks for anything else they can use. Get some good from this…”
“Ana, the Warsats could haul this whole station as long as we do it soon.”
Caelus rotates away into shadow once again, and the planet’s sheen fades from sight. Ana clicks a spring-loaded slot on the desk. It snaps to, bearing a placard of ownership.
CLOVIS BRAY
Ana stands. Steady.
“It’s okay to let some things be forgotten.”
End