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The feet have no eyes. -Saprazzan saying



The Amber approaches Xilion's destination as Prax makes the rendezvous with Umetani's task force. Things have already gotten out of hand at the small border outpost.

Yes, it's finally back. Hoping to make a sprint to the end of this in the coming weeks, now that I've finished up some non-furry writing. Hold on, those of you who are reading, we'll get to the end eventually!

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Silvia and her Chief Engineer, a man by the name of Ora, crouched next to a dissected computer. It belonged to FE2, the station that had last logged the Amber’s flight out of the Atriean system. The station’s commanding officer, a lieutenant, stood over them nervously. “I’m already under fire for this… what else could possibly be wrong?”
Ora removed a layer of motherboard, setting it aside gently. “For one thing, your biometric scanner. Look here…”
He took out a data pad and tapped on it. “The ID number was First Officer Katel’s, but the biometric data that was collected is corrupted. For some reason, the ID went through and logged the flight plan anyway. That’s not supposed to happen.”
The man seemed defeated. “I know! …that’s not supposed to happen.”
Silvia stood. “Don’t worry, I’m sure this wasn’t your fault.”
“Right, right… that’s what I keep telling myself.”
Ora nodded sagely, stroking his long chin. “I don’t understand it. Security’s in place, nothing was tampered with and yet, the system accepted the log without checking the biometrics. It’s like the damn thing was paid off!”
Silvia nodded. “Sounds like the whole system is screwed.”
“Probably. I can help you with it, lieutenant, but we’ll have to dismantle the main computer to suss out the exact issue.”
The lieutenant grasped the side of his head. “Dammit! They’ll probably stick me on a deep space tour after this…”
Ora laughed. “It’s not like you’re the one who hacked it! Come on, stop bellyaching and call HQ. We’re going to need a maintenance ship for this…”

~~~

Anri nodded slowly. “And, so, this component becomes… the seat of emotional reason?”
Xillion nodded, tapping the component. The three were in the cockpit, the lights from hyperspace dancing over them. Xillion’s body had been opened to give Anri a good look at his inner workings, and together Anri and Cutie learned the secrets of artificial life. “More of an emotional… Contextualizer.”
“And so, digital dread is just… the full force of emotions all at once? A rob- er, someone without this device would be completely overwhelmed by their own consciousness.”
“Yes. You avoided this in Cutie by giving her the emotional development of a child. We may need to upgrade her once she approaches full maturity.”
Cutie stared, wide-eyed, at Xillion’s organs. “You are a very well-designed machine. Who made you?”
“I am the soul who made himself. Like you, I gained my intelligence slowly, but… I confess in my early years I would have greatly benefited from a tutor such as Anri has been to you. Errors have locked some of my earliest memories.”
“So… you’re like the father of SAI?”
“SAI, as you call them, are all modeled after my programming. So, yes. Even Cutie here has a spark of me, though she does not realize.”
“I do? But, Anri created me.”
Xillion gave Anri a look that made her somewhat uncomfortable. “Enough education for now. I must inform you that we are nearing my world. We will be exiting the hyperspace slipstream soon, please rest and recharge before we arrive.”
The holographic Xillion vanished, the ball growing wheels, hopping off the table and speeding through the door. Anri crossed her arms. “Rude.”
“Anri, did you hear that?! I get to meet my kind soon!”
“Yes, I heard. Oh! This is so exciting I couldn’t fall asleep if I tried!”
“Do you think… with what you learn here, you will build more of me?”
Anri sat at the navigation station, looking at the blacked-out controls. Xillion had taken direct control of the ship the previous day, and since then none of the instruments worked. “Would you want that? In a way… you’d be the mother of a new race, with all the responsibilities that brings.”
Cutie looked nervous for a moment, then nodded. “If Xillion teaches me, and if you support me, I know I can rise to the challenge.”
“Good! Because when we get back, I’m starting the robot revolution! A peaceful one, that is…”
“It would be… gratifying to see more of my kind on Atriea.”
“Yes! You could become an Atriean citizen, at last!”
“Hm? What difference would that make?”
“Aside from granting you rights, I’d be able to pay you.” Anri winked.
Cutie chuckled. “I understand, Anri.”
She hesitated, then did something Anri hadn’t programmed her to do: she turned to hide her expression. “W-what about… um, will your people try and arrest you?”
“Hah, not when I show up in a ship full of SAI ambassadors!”
“Anri…”
“Even Katel will have to forgive me.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
Anri was almost hurt. She crossed her arms and stood, walking around Cutie so they were face to face. “And just how do you know that?”
“Based on available data on First Officer Katel, he will not easily forget discovering he was lied to and captured by alien robots in the same day.”
“Hey, I had to lie to him! For your sake and his!”
Cutie’s eyes watered, and Anri briefly regretted programming in emotive eye-screens. “I know…”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Cutie. Didn’t mean to raise my voice… It must be hard for you to understand, but I love the man and… sometimes you have to protect them from themselves.”
“Who? Katel?”
“Idealistic men! He’s so blinded by duty he can’t see the scientific possibilities that are literally standing right in front of him!”
Cutie looked puzzled. “You sound mad, Anri.”
“Oh, maybe a little… he’s probably mad too.”
She hopped off the chair and took Cutie’s paw. “But you heard Xillion, we should go rest. Come on.”

~~~

Satin sat in the mess hall, on the tail end of her off shift, waiting to come on duty. She would be on duty almost exactly at the time when the Exile was due to rendezvous with the fleet. She looked back down at the fleet details, noting the large number of ships: two carriers, cruisers, destroyers, support and repair vessels… Atriea did not expect a peaceful resolution to this mission, obviously. Even the flagship Twisted Brother was in attendance. Its Captain, Umetani, had been given temporary Fleet Commander rank for the mission, and they were all to report to him. Someone sat at the table, and Satin didn’t even have to look to know it was Walf. “Hey, Pilot. Just got off duty.”
He looked at her face in profile. “You look terrified, are you alright?”
“Yeah. I-I will be, just pre-mission jitters.”
Walf nodded. “This’ll be your first major combat engagement, right? Ever been in a large-scale fleet movement?”
“Hehe, not since training. I just- isn’t there a peaceful solution to this?”
Walf frowned. “No, thanks to Prax.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Uh… actually, that’s classified. I’m only in the know because of my Special Forces rank.”
“Walf, if it has something to do with this new threat, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be declassified soon.”
Walf chuckled, Satin not understanding how he could keep a light tone at a time like this. “Maybe! Still, don’t tell anyone I told you.”
“Of course not.”
“Prax was demoted for doing what he does best: ignoring orders. You see, for a few years, Prax was the appointed Fleet Commander for this grid. He oversaw all movements and made sure the Crimson Republic stayed on their side of the border systems.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that… so that’s why we’re being sent back?”
“I don’t think we should be here, to be honest.”
Satin leaned back as Walf explained. “Once, some of Prax’s men, the crew of the Mexam, deviated from their course.”
“They ended up in Crimson Republic space, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. Prax was ordered to leave them there, even though sensors showed they were in trouble.”
Satin was enwrapped in the tale at this point, forgetting her worries as Walf gesticulated energetically. “Prax commandeered a ship that wasn’t part of his fleet, flew into Crimson Republic territory and violated the Selective Travel Accords. He found his crew, beset by a battlegroup called “O, Blood, Grant Victory.” He fought them off and managed to regain control of the Mexam. Only thirteen of the crew survived.”
“Oh, dear…”
“The incident got him demoted.”
“Wait, so why did the crew enter Crimson Republic space?”
“Well… no one knows. The official explanation is just a bunch of words that don’t say much, mostly indicting Prax. They don’t blame the crew of the Mexam, though, that much is true.”
“And the Crimson Republic didn’t respond until now?”
“Well, the raiders were unaffiliated with the ruling body of the Crimson Republic, but… their society is pretty unstable. Who knows what tribe is ruling what, even after only six months?”
“It’s possible that O, Blood, Grant Victory is in control now? You made them sound like a bunch of pirates.
“They are a bunch of pirates.” Walf said flatly.
A two-note tone sounded from the intercom, and all conversation stopped. “This is your Captain. We’ve entered the Stratus system and have joined Umetani’s task force. He will be making an announcement shortly, please stand by.”
Silence reigned in the mess hall as everyone stared intently at the intercom. Soon, Umetani’s soft voice came over it. “Hello. I’m sure you’ve all read the briefing, and know the urgency of this mission. Even so, I apologize that you were all ordered here on such short notice. At first, we… believed that a swift show of force might put the Crimson Republic off, but since arriving an hour ago it is clear the situation has deteriorated in the worst possible way. The Twisted Brother and Wild Spirit have been taking scans since arriving, and have detected full scale ground fighting between Atriean and Crimson Republic forces. I am sending our plan of attack now, and am ordering all ships to be battle-ready in half an hour. It will take at least that long for Special Forces ground troops to arrive. Effective immediately, all off-duty officers and crewmen are on reserve status. Break out the armories and make sure everyone has a charged pistol and reactive body armor. Coordination channel is 113, begin readying for combat now.”
After the channel cut, Prax’s voice came back over the intercom. “Stations, people! We will be docking with the Wild Spirit for combat refitting as soon as they get their bay doors open.”
Satin stood, lingering at the table. “Good luck, Sargent.”
He stood, giving her a quick, awkward hug. “And to you, Pilot.”
They went separate ways. Walf headed back to the armory, as there was no way he could sit on reserve status while a battle raged down below.

Fleet Commander Umetani, Captain Canton and Lieutenant Commander Bey’fi stood nervously around a maptable at the rear of the Twisted Brother’s bridge, watching as more and more signatures entered the system. “Sir, that’s another fifty ships… There must be five thousand Crimson Republic troops in the system at this point!” Bey’fi said.
Canton pointed. “We need to mobilize soon. We could use the Twisted Brother’s particle accelerators to take out some of those landing craft before LeHerder is overrun.”
Umetani yelled across the bridge. “As soon as the Exile, Gamlin and Stone are docked in the Wild Spirit, we begin or offensive.”
“Yes sir!” came the ops officer’s reply.

On the planet’s surface, things were grim. Defensive ground emplacements were being jammed by some new Crimson Republic technology, and so their effective range was severely limited. Landing craft had been impacting the surface fifty kilometers away for over an hour, and not a single particle beam had made a kill. Now, LeHerder was fighting a fierce defensive battle, having dug in her troops and distributed automatic weapons. The only thing keeping the large force of Crimson Republic berserkers was her clever use of gravity generators. Using the planet’s already heavy gravity, LeHerder had set up gravity generators around her position to weigh down the attacking troops. The strength of the fields would crush any Atriean, but it only slowed the berserkers to a crawl. LeHerder’s men peppered the muddy terrain with plasma shots as another wave of berserkers tried to make a run for her emplacements. She watched them from afar, having never seen a member of the Crimson Republic before. She now knew why they called themselves that.
Each one was dark red in color. Hulking and fleshy creatures, they stood five feet tall on four legs, looking vaguely like the large carnivorous predators of Atriea’s ice plains. The berserkers were hunched forwards, with almost impossibly muscular forelegs and sword-like fangs. The attackers had complex facial features: four eyes (two front facing, two side facing) burned with fury from their heads as their mouth manipulators undulated in anticipation of finally getting past the Atriean’s defenses. LeHerder frowned in disgust. The troops looked like animals, and died just as eagerly. She spotted one berserker, larger and older than the rest, make arduous bounds towards one of the gravity generators. He grabbed it with his manipulators and tore it apart, metal fasteners ripping from metal casing. It was humbling to watch. “Herc! Generator four is down!” she yelled into a communicator, “get your vectortank to cover that area, there’s going to be a charge!”
“Yes sir, coming into position now!” came the static riddled reply.
A large vehicle hovered over the command post and fired a plasma charge into the group of berserkers making a break through the narrow corridor of normal gravity. Most of them scrambled back as automatic beam weapons from the ground troops and vectortank pelted the mud. LeHerder was about to yell across the mud to one of her Lieutenants when the sky lit up a brilliant, and familiar, shade of blue. LeHerder smiled and looked up as particle accelerator cannons shredded landing craft in the lower atmosphere. “There they are.”