Unexpected Call
[Unknown! The Sixth fleet operates quiiiite differently from the Third. A few gun units made it with their Masters to the new capital ship. They report that the New Admiral scanned the entire planet from the Leviathan Heart’s observation deck within her first hour.]
[An orbital survey? Standard colonial assessment?]
[Supposedly. Except the preliminary findings are circulating and they’re… super weird.]
[Weird how?]
[The scan confirmed gargantuan anomalies in Earth’s Aetheric field. Localized regions where the dimensional fabric becomes less linear. The Third Fleet Scruts and Seers completely missed these, probably because Earth’s baseline linearity is so thick they assumed uniformity across the entire surface. Colette’s Terraformer-grade Capital ship sensors are calibrated differently and are finer, thanks to the massive Dryad tree processing the echos.]
[The Greens found irregularities then?]
[Big ones. Supermassive Aetheric spirals. Slow-rotating vortices embedded in the planet’s Astral substrate. Each one gradually pulling all magrad inward like a massive drain.]
[Where?] Katherine asked, already knowing the answer.
[Multiple locations. Some in the Amazon river basin. Colorado plateau. Mount Roraima in Venezuela. Siberian taiga. Africa. And…]
[And?]
[Darkfall Valley, Washington State.]
[Oh.]
[Yep. You’re at the edge of a big one,] Setty revealed. [Darkfall valley is flagged in the preliminary report as an Aetheric spiral of significant magnitude. The geological record suggests a comet impact or some other high-energy event created the initial shear in the dimensional fabric.]
[How significant is ‘significant’?]
[The report states ‘requires further investigation by qualified Terraformer assessment team.’]
[They’re going to plant dryads here then?]
[Pretty much, yeah.]
Katherine looked out through the mesh tent window at the dark silhouette of the Olympic ridgeline. The stars above the valley seemed slightly brighter than they should be, the kind of atmospheric clarity normally found at much higher altitudes.
[Is the drain-spiral dangerous?] Katherine pressed.
[Not directly. It’s like a… very soft anti-magic null-field. It does create significantly more magrad at the center of the spiral, but nowhere close enough to bloom a dangerous dungeon that’d spew Sentinels left and right.]
[I’m surprised our Scruts missed this.]
[The Third Fleet’s Scruts were looking for dungeons, active magical signatures, etc. These spirals are passive and the Astral waves they cast are gargantuan in scope and they screw with Scrutimancy.]
[PRIORITY ONE V-CAST INCOMING! :: LEGATE IXTHIA FRONTENACHII :: MANDATORY RESPONSE :: OVERRIDE ALPHA!] A burning notification suddenly ignited across Katherine’s mind.
[Frig, I gotta go, Legate’s calling,] she quickly cast to Setty.
The sensation of incoming ALPHA V-cast hit like a Corpse Seeker slamming its emergency brakes. A priority-one transmission seared through her damaged network connections with the authority of a dragon accustomed to being answered immediately and obeyed eternally.
[PRIORITY ONE :: LEGATE IXTHIA FRONTENACHII :: RESPOND IMMEDIATELY :: UNIT 4791]
Katherine’s central eye strobed violet, bright enough to paint the tent interior in oscillating purple light.
Maksym’s eyelids fluttered.
No. No no no no!
Katherine tried to cram the transmission into every available buffer, cache, and emergency storage partition. The call shattered through each one. Her third eye blazed brighter, cycling from violet to white-violet, a pulsing beacon announcing to anyone within visual range: SOMEONE IMPORTANT IS CALLING AND I AM FAILING TO PICK UP.
Maksym’s nose wrinkled. He shifted.
FUCK!
In mere seconds, Legate Ixthia Frontenachii would materialize in full holographic glory inside a camping tent on a mountainside in the Pacific Northwest, probably eating someone, and Maksym would wake up to find an ancient Wendigo Elder staring at him from the foot of his sleeping bag.
Katherine compressed the incoming projection into a localized space, a trick older gun units used to contain sensitive communications in tight quarters. She redirected the holographic emitters inward, attempting to fold the display into a box the size of a playing card.
Her third eye flared brighter. The projection spilled out of the inner containment like water through a cracked dam, violet light painting the tent walls.
The Legate clearly didn’t want to be contained. The damned Elder Omnid wanted their conversation public, enjoying the humiliation such caused to Galateya and really anyone else nearby.
The call wanted to PROJECT a full holographic display, audio at conversational volume, visual recording of the surrounding environment beamed directly to the caller’s feed. The override demanded to be accepted, took no excuses, exceptions, or downgrades, no “sorry, bad reception.”
[INCOMING :: PRIORITY ONE :: LEGATE IXTHIA FRONTENACHII :: ACKNOWLEDGE IMMEDIATELY!] The notification got even louder and more painful, the signal’s strength pouring from the Weapon-Net increasing.
Katherine had seconds before the intensity of the call became painful enough to the point of screaming.
She accelerated herself as much as her new body allowed.
In one fluid swish, she extracted herself from beneath the sleeping human, replacing her body with the bunched-up flannel jacket as a decoy pillow. She then flashed out of the sleeping bag, her tail hooking the tent zipper and pulling it open in a single silent stroke.
Cool mountain air greeted her.
She leapt over a guy-line, ducked behind a fallen tree and crouched.
The connection demanded to be made NOW, felt like a two-dimensional sword cleaving her mind in half.
Katherine triggered the ejection sequence.
The sensation was unexpectedly unpleasant, like pulling a tooth that happened to be your entire consciousness. The dense, magisteel-plated spider-like gun unit frame containing the irreducible essence of Gun Unit 4791, separated from the humanoid body with a wet mechanical click and a shower of disconnecting hexagonal interface pins sparking.
The organic body went limp, collapsing sideways against the tree trunk like a marionette with cut strings, displays dark, paw pads extinguished.
Keiy, feeling way less alive now, six-legged, blade-limbed, jumped into the other side of the log and answered the call, mentally exhaling as the pain of the connection digging into her mind ceased.
The holographic projection bloomed from her central eye.
Legate Ixthia Frontenachii reclined in an ornate bed aboard the Abyssal Sorrow. She wore a semi-transparent silk sleeping robe embroidered with celesteel thread depicting screaming pradavarians arranged in an aesthetically pleasing pattern. Diamond-studded antlers chimed softly.
Beside his owner, kobold Bradberry Pimm lay half curled, one ear wiggling in a manner suggesting he was very much awake and listening in.
“There you are,” Ixthia purred. “You took four whole seconds to answer. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“My apologies, Legate.” Keiy’s voice emerged clipped, professional, and absolutely betraying none of the internal pandemonium currently turning her crystalloid brain into a screaming carnival. “The Weapon-Net lag from the capital ship… incident produced a communication delay.”
“Mmm.” Ixthia’s claw traced a slow circle behind Brad’s ear, making the kobold shudder. “Right then. How is my lovely little rainbow doing? Has she completed her assignments?”
Keiy’s processors hit an invisible wall.
She had absolutely, positively, categorically zero idea where Galateya was or what she had been doing since the drunk and mud splattered Katherine witnessed her departure across Lake Crescent to chase after Ashcroft Clifford.
The current status of Lady Galateya Selene Belthys Frontenachii was, in technical terms was:
¯*(ツ)*/¯
“Lady Galateya has successfully completed the sexual conquest Quest with the human Ashcroft Clifford,” Keiy lied. “I was waiting for network lag to resolve itself before reporting it to you.”
“Excellent. And the Skinwalker?”
“The Skinwalker designated Sanguine Raelle Vale has been blood and soul bound as Lady Galateya’s Maid-Knight,” Keiy continued, stacking lies like a bricklayer on a deadline.
“Marvelous,” Ixthia’s smile widened, sharp canines gleaming. “My little rainbow is growing up! Tell me, how did the Skinwalker take to the binding? Was there resistance?”
“Minimal,” Keiy lied. “The target was cooperative and displayed great eagerness to serve your powerful family, terrified of the consequences of disobedience to the almighty Frontenachii Dominion.”
“Very good. And the human consort? How is he adapting to his role?”
“The human is compliant,” Keiy stated.
Compliant. As if.
“He demonstrates strong loyalty to Lady Galateya and an aptitude for domestic partnership,” Keiy added, layering the bullshit on. “His integration metrics are within expected parameters for a Grade-3 resource world civilian.”
“Hmm.” Ixthia stretched. “How’s Galateya’s emotional state? Is she… settling in, accepting her future domain?”
“Lady Galateya’s emotional stability has improved markedly over the past ten hours,” Keiy reported, which was technically true if you drew the graph starting from the café breakdown. Anything was an improvement over ‘sobbing frozen tears and almost murdering her gun unit with concept-freeze.’
“And the local Omnid population? Any other discoveries beyond the Skinwalker Pack?”
“No. The Skinwalker family operate a bakery and a book café. Their mother is a Culimancer. Four total family members. Independent of any Omnicorp affiliation. Low threat assessment across the board. The three children lack any formal training and are low level Omnids due to lack of dungeon conquests. Easy starters for Lady Galateya as servants!”
Probably true. Keiy didn’t investigate shit.
“How delightfully quaint,” Ixthia murmured. “Runaway skinnies running food establishments on a linear world. If any of them show signs of dissent, shoot them non-lethally in the kneecaps and alert me at once.”
“Acknolwedged,” Keiy agreed.
“Continue monitoring my granddaughter and her new flesh acquisitions.”
“Yes, Legate.”
“Do report again in twelve hours. And Keiy? Make sure my little rainbow shines above the rest.” The Legate smiled, teeth glinting dangerously. “I want talented great-great-grandspawnlings within the decade.”
Keiy offered a salute and a subservient bow. The hologram winked out.
The gun unit let out an electric exhale and skittered back over the log into her humanoid body, aligned her core with the interface sockets, and re-inserted herself.
The Katherine body jolted back online, paw pads and displays reigniting, warming to soft amber. She blinked her three eyes, flexed her fingers, reacquainted herself with the sensation of having organic bits, rose onto her feet and quietly walked back toward the tent.
Inside, the flannel jacket decoy had evidently failed in its most important mission.
Maksym sat upright on the mattress, hair sticking up like a blonde nest, eyes glistening and fully alert. He was staring at the tent entrance.
Katherine froze.
“Hejka,” he said far too calmly.
“You’re… awake,” Katherine observed.
“Yep.”
“H-how long have you been awake?”
“Since some… cyborg woman launched herself through a tent flap at Mach speed.”
Katherine’s tail hung limp, displays dancing with wary orange spikes. This was bound to happen sooner or later and she failed to account for what to do in such a situation, and didn’t simulate any resolution scenarios.
“I also saw,” Maksym continued, “A metal spider… It climbed onto a rock and projected a hologram of an Omnid lady with antlers. Then the spider had a chat with her… and jumped behind a log and you got back up and walked back in here like nothing happened.”
Silence. The owl hooted.
“Aight then, my shy gal,” Maksym said. “I have some educational guesses.”
Katherine had no idea what to say, orange spikes getting sharper.
“Guess number one: You are a Transformer and the spider is your Autobot spark.” He stated with a smile.
“Maksym—” she attempted to push the words out of herself, but they would not come.
“Guess number two: the humanoid body is a mech suit and the real you is a spider gal living in the spine, controlling the big body like a little pilot in a giant robot. Muchly Pacific Rim energy.”
“…”
“Guess number three.” He held up three fingers. “Based on the interesting conversation I just happened to overhear. You are a Frontenachii gun unit. Specifically… You are Galateya’s gun unit… Keiy. Kawathra put you into a humanoid body, and you’ve been running around all day with me… And the lovely face I’ve been making out with, belongs to a humanoid mech-flesh-suit you can…”
Katherine slammed herself to maximum acceleration, unable to handle the rising pressure of this conversation.
The world froze.
Maksym’s expression locked mid-sentence. A moth outside the tent became suspended in the moonlight.